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According to Ilana Garon, popular books and movies are inundated with the myth of the “hero teacher”—the one who charges headfirst into dysfunctional inner city schools like a firefighter into an inferno, bringing the student victims to safety through a combination of charisma and innate righteousness. The students are then “saved” by the teacher’s idealism, empathy, and willingness to put faith in kids who have been given up on by society as a whole.“Why Do Only White People Get Abducted by Aliens?” is not that type of book. In this book, Garon reveals the sometimes humorous, oftentimes frustrating, and occasionally horrifying truths that accompany the experience of teaching...
How public are America’s public schools? They may be tax funded and free, but the combination of market-based policies, exclusionary governance, insufficient funding, and structural inequities impair schools’ ability to prepare future citizens, workers, neighbors, and stewards of the planet. Gyurko offers a fresh look at the “publicness” of American education through historical accounts, scholarly research, first-hand reporting, and political analyses. Chapters on funding, governance, standards, accountability, and equity show what must be done to better identify and strengthen the shared aims of public schools. Novel insights explain how even controversial topics like charter school...
In the increasingly vital world of social media marketing, if you don’t have a strong digital presence, it’s like you’re not even there. Going Social is an indispensable guide to taking advantage of digital marketing, reaching a critical number of prospective customers, and revitalizing your business’s brand. You’ll gain answers to the questions every marketer is asking, like How much is a Facebook “like” worth? What are the best dashboards for monitoring multiple social channels simultaneously? How do you keep it all going around the clock? And which automation tools, promotional ads, scheduling platforms, and social media channels offer the greatest return on investment? For ...
Thirteen stories from a modern master "Brodsky is a master both of technique and of language, his sentences positively crackling with unexpected insights."--Publishers Weekly "Brodsky possesses a masterly control of diction and rhythm, an often startling metaphoric gift, and a range of effects extending from Swiftian bluntness to Proustian elaboration."--The New York Review of Books "He brings the reader to reflect anew on ways of knowing and truths of being in an uncertain world."--The New York Times Book Review
This startling novel is the concentrated peak of Brodsky’s dynamic and unique vision. With a shifting group of characters—Mazel Tov Jones, Neddie and Eddie, Vladimir and Mr. and Mrs. Stein, Brodsky explores the thought process of a protagonist who is accused of a murder but is never sure of his crime or his accusers. Brodsky’s character becomes a model for all humans trying to find a self-identity, reduced to the simple yet tragic dilemma of trying to communicate with fellow men. Stripped of excess plot and locale, this novel expands on the visions of Beckett and Kafka, but with a uniquely American voice. Circuits will surprise and engage the serious reader at a level that few contemporary writers attempt to reach. Brodsky lives up to Ezra Pound’s famous challenge—Make it new—and pushes fiction and the novel to new limits with spirit and vigor.
Detour charts the struggle of a film-crazed young man to shape his identity; it is also about his resistance to doing so at every turn. Owning an identity can mean being straitjacketed, condemned to a living death; language becomes both an escape from the straitjacket and its evilest genius. Detour is also a story of first love, as it concerns the intense, transient sexual relationship between the young man, who is very reluctant about to enter medical school in the Midwest, and a rootless former heroin addict named Anne. The hero of Detour experiences movies the way Don Quixote responds to the romances of chilvary—as being infinitely more real than anything else in the world. Hence the co...
Having grown from 390 athletes from fourteen countries to nine thousand athletes from seventy-eight countries, the Maccabiah Games (or the “Jewish Olympics,” as it has come to be known) continue to gain popularity. The Maccabiah Games, which take place in Israel, first began in 1932, and the latest games took place in July of 2013, with the debut of participants from Cuba, Albania, and Nicaragua. Sports range from table tennis to ice hockey, basketball, chess, and much more. Past participants have included former NBA coach Larry Brown, Olympic swimmers Mark Spitz and Jason Lezak, and Olympic gymnast Mitch Gaylord, among others. The Jewish Olympics details the history of the Maccabiah Gam...
The first Jewish brothers in the NFL since 1923 take readers inside their lives and into the locker rooms in a revealing book on football, food, family, and faith. Geoff and Mitchell Schwartz are the NFL’s most improbable pair of offensive linemen. They started their football careers late, not playing a down of organized football until they joined their low-key high school program. Despite all that, they wound up at top-tier college programs and became the first Jewish brothers in the league since 1923. In Eat My Schwartz, Geoff and Mitch talk about the things that have made them the extraordinary people that they are: their close-knit and supportive family, their Jewish faith and traditions, their love of the game and drive for excellence and, last but not least, the food they love to eat, whether at home or on the road. Theirs is an inspiring story not just for every football fan but for everybody wanting to figure out what it takes for dreams to come true—and how to stay well-fed throughout the process.