Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada's Quest to Change Harlem and America [Paperback] Author: Paul Tough | Language: English | ISBN:
0547247966 | Format: PDF, EPUB
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What would it take?
That was the question that Geoffrey Canada found himself asking. What would it take to change the lives of poor childrennot one by one, through heroic interventions and occasional miracles, but in big numbers, and in a way that could be replicated nationwide? The question led him to create the Harlem Children’s Zone, a ninety-seven-block laboratory in central Harlem where he is testing new and sometimes controversial ideas about poverty in America. His conclusion: if you want poor kids to be able to compete with their middle-class peers, you need to change everything in their livestheir schools, their neighborhoods, even the child-rearing practices of their parents.
Whatever It Takes is a tour de force of reporting, an inspired portrait not only of Geoffrey Canada but of the parents and children in Harlem who are struggling to better their lives, often against great odds. Carefully researched and deeply affecting, this is a dispatch from inside the most daring and potentially transformative social experiment of our time.
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- Paperback: 336 pages
- Publisher: Mariner Books; Reprint edition (September 10, 2009)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0547247966
- ISBN-13: 978-0547247960
- Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
- Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
... and see what life we can make for our children", a quote by Sitting Bull, embraces the philosophy and vision of outstanding educator, reformer, and leader Geoffrey Canada, creator of the Harlem Children's Zone. Part biography, part call to action, "Whatever it Takes" is a transformative book of the highest order, one that challenges, inspires, and calls people to do what's best for our children.
Author Paul Tough writes a compelling and highly readable story of Geoffrey Canada's struggle from social service agency manager to this hugely comprehensive program designed to hold students in a web of great education and accountability until they enter college. Frustrated by seeing too many students who were in need of help and not receiving it, Canada envisioned a dream in which the children would be taken care of, from womb to high school, so that they wouldn't be haggled the by overwhelming needs that often interfered with their development and hence, education. Canada dared to ask the hard what, "What if?", and now, years after asking it, the Harlem Children's Zone is proving it's results.
What's interesting about the book is that Tough doesn't sugar coat anything. The HCZ has had it's ups and down, its issues and celebrations. Canada's philosophical battle with the Promise Academy's first principal Terri Grey, shows the conflicts that arose; two people with the same intentions, disagreeing on the way to go about it. Often, in a book like this, there is a temptation to be upbeat and happy about something new and innovative, probably so as not to give potential critics ammunition to shoot it down. Tough paints its honesty. It's simply refreshing. Dealing with students in poverty comes with no easy answers.
"Whatever It Takes" is a very good book with some significant limitations that prevent it from becoming a great book.
The book's strengths include the following:
*** It provides some profiles of the challenges facing individuals in poverty in Harlem.
*** It provides an in-depth description of the workings of the Harlem Children's Zone, focusing in particular on its parenting programs and middle school programs.
*** It provides an interesting profile of Geoffrey Canada, the creator and director of the Harlem Children's Zone, who is certainly a fascinating man who deserves the spotlight.
*** It provides a good and user-friendly summary of the research literatures on the influence of parenting practices on how children do in the short-run and long-run, the disparities in parental environment across socioeconomic classes in the U.S., and how quality preschool programs affect how children fare as adults. It also includes some brief but interesting discussions of the KIPP charter school program.
What are the book's limitations?
*** It never provides a real summary of what Geoffrey Canada's vision would cost if implemented on a large scale. What would it really cost for the nation to provide parenting classes, high quality preschool, longer and high quality school years, and high quality after school programs, for all parents and children who need these services? This omission of cost estimates prevents the debate over the merits of Geoffrey Canada's vision from being fully joined in this book.
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