Table of Contents

Part 1 Introduction: Our Changing World: A Cause for Celebration
Chapter 2 Before School: What I Bring
Chapter 3 Waiting for First Hour
Chapter 4 First Hour: Recognizing Oneself
Chapter 5 Second Hour: History and Literature
Chapter 6 Third Hour: Student Voices as the Center of the Class
Chapter 7 Lunch Hour: Students' Lives
Chapter 8 Fourth Hour: Connections
Chapter 9 Interlude: Twenty-Four Seven
Chapter 10 Fifth Hour: Representing
Chapter 11 My White Power World
Chapter 12 Sixth Hour: Expectations
Chapter 13 After School: Training Teachers
Chapter 14 At Night: Community
Chapter 15 Living in Different Worlds
Chapter 16 Celebrations at Home
Chapter 17 Resistance: The Power of White Activism
Chapter 18 Epilogue

About the Author

Julie Landsman is Benedict Distinguished Visiting Professor at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. Until her recent retirement, she had spent many years working with both troubled and gifted students in middle and high schools in the Minneapolis Public School System. She continues to teach in Minneapolis as a Writer in the Schools. Ms. Landsman presently has a monthly column in the Skyway News.

Reviews

Landsman's intellectual and personal rapport with her students is impressive...this balanced, quietly impassioned account affords insight into race relations in the classroom and will appeal to parents and educators who are struggling with these issues.
*Publishers Weekly*

If you are one of the teachers exhausted by the ways that systemic race and class dynamics play out in school, Landsman's stories may give you courage....This is a teacher I would cherish for my children: wise about power dynamics, committed to justice, engaged with students, and never self-righteous.
*Peggy McIntosh, associate director, Wellesley College Center for Research on Women and author of "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack"*

Landsman brings keen observation and empathy to her recollections of working as a writer and teacher with racially diverse students at a public high school in Minneapolis....She lifts some of those blinders in this insightful presentation on the intersection of race, poverty, and culture in an increasingly divers nation.
*Booklist*

Experienced teacher and Minneapolis writer Landsman (Basic Needs: A Year with Street Kids in a City School) here describes a typical day in an inner-city, alternative high school program. She discusses the daily trials and triumphs of her students, 75 percent or more of whom are not of European descent and many with family difficulties, children of their own to support, and daily confrontations with violence and racism. Through her experiences, Landsman portrays some of the practices that work with "nontraditional" students, such as having them write from different perspectives and offering more inclusive lessons about history, and she points out the flaws of current "one size fits all" approaches to education. This readable book conveys its message simply and powerfully. A superb addition to public and academic libraries. Mark Bay, Indiana Univ.-Purdue Univ. Lib., Indianapolis Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Landsman's intellectual and personal rapport with her students is impressive...this balanced, quietly impassioned account affords insight into race relations in the classroom and will appeal to parents and educators who are struggling with these issues. * Publishers Weekly *
If you are one of the teachers exhausted by the ways that systemic race and class dynamics play out in school, Landsman's stories may give you courage....This is a teacher I would cherish for my children: wise about power dynamics, committed to justice, engaged with students, and never self-righteous. -- Peggy McIntosh, associate director, Wellesley College Center for Research on Women and author of White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsa
Landsman brings keen observation and empathy to her recollections of working as a writer and teacher with racially diverse students at a public high school in Minneapolis....She lifts some of those blinders in this insightful presentation on the intersection of race, poverty, and culture in an increasingly divers nation. * Booklist *