Synopsis

A comprehensive update of the classic study that delivers both a passionate plea and strategies for teachers, parents, and community organizers to give working-class children the same type of empowering education and powerful literacy skills that the children of upper- and middle-class people receive.

Booknews

Finn (education, State U. of New York at Buffalo) denies the common claim that the poor are not smart enough or are merely too lazy to excel at literacy. Instead, he argues that the poor have commonly received what he calls domesticating education which leads to productive, docile citizens, while the wealthier students get empowering education, allowing them to maintain their positions of power. He draws on his own experiences as a teacher with a working class background to elucidate some differences among classes in communication styles and assumptions, and discusses methods developed by the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire for teaching working class students. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Biography

Patrick J. Finn is Associate Professor Emeritus of Education at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. Finn was named the Robert F. and Augusta Finkelstein Memorial Lecturer for Fall 2008 at Adelphi University. He is the coeditor (with Mary E. Finn) of Teacher Education with an Attitude: Preparing Teachers to Educate Working-Class Students in Their Collective Self-Interest, also published by SUNY Press.