Some Kid I Taught and What They Taught Me: A Review

 RATING: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Kate Clanchy wants to change the world and thinks school is an excellent place to do it. She invites you to meet some of the kids she has taught in her thirty-year career.

Join her as she explains everything about sex to a classroom of thirteen-year-olds. As she works in the school ‘Inclusion Unit’, trying to improve the fortunes of kids excluded from regular lessons because of their terrifying power to end learning in an instant. Or as she nurtures her multicultural poetry group, full of migrants and refugees, watches them find their voice and produce work of heart-breaking brilliance.

While Clanchy doesn’t deny stinging humiliations or hide painful accidents, she celebrates this most creative, passionate and practically useful of jobs. Teaching today is all too often demeaned, diminished and drastically under-resourced. Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me will show you why it shouldn’t be. 

 

I received this book twice as a Christmas present so clearly it was in the stars that I would read it. I read this book way back at the start of February when I was waiting for the go ahead to complete my last teaching placement for my university degree in primary education. It has been in my wish list since it was published so I couldn’t wait to read it. The book discusses some of the most interesting aspects of teaching, in particular the young lives that are being shaped and changed through their education. Teaching is never always easy, and this book does not hide away from the challenges and the struggles that come with a career in education. However, it also highlights the uplifting and life-changing moments that can happen during the six hours children spend in school a day.

 

I loved reading this book. I can’t deny that it did have its faults with the obsession of being middle-class and judgy remarks made about peoples’ backgrounds and looks, but the overall message of the book I enjoyed. It showed the realities of teaching while also discussing the amazing moments that can happen. I do really recommend this book to anyone in the education profession. It does not represent everyone’s experience in education, but it does show one person’s time and it does so in a way that also shows the shared experiences people will have. Teachers don’t have enough time in the day to complete all the jobs that are expected of them, but they are constantly changing the lives of pupils. 

 

Until next time, I’ll continue reading with wanderlust.

📚🧳✈️🗺