Walking A Tightrope Or Catapulting From A Cannon?

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Walking a tightrope or catapulting from a cannon?

James Lovelace’s 8th-grade English classroom was not like the other classes in the middle school where he taught in East San Jose, California. His students sat in a circle, Socratic seminar style, and discussed poetry. They dissected the lyrics to songs like Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car.” His students wrote essays about what it meant to be themselves, to be young people of color growing up in a vibrant Latinx community that also faced its share of challenges. They debated issues of family and life choices that came up when reading The Pearl and To Kill a Mockingbird. As a new teacher, he saw that most of his colleagues had been teaching the same material in the same way for 20-plus years — and many of

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