Behind The Blackboard

The book that may influence the direction of thought, action, and education necessary to meet the needs of today's complex society.

The New York City Teachers Union shares a deep history with the American left, having participated in some of its most explosive battles. Established in 1916, the union maintained an early, unofficial partnership with the American Communist Party, winning key union positions and advocating a number of Party goals. Clarence Taylor recounts this pivotal relationship and the backlash it created, as the union threw its support behind controversial policies and rights movements. Taylor's research reaffirms the party's close ties with the union—yet it also makes clear that the organization was anything but a puppet of Communist power. Reds at the Blackboard showcases the rise of a unique type of unionism that would later dominate the organizational efforts behind civil rights, academic freedom, and the empowerment of blacks and Latinos. Through its affiliation with the Communist Party, the union pioneered what would later become social movement unionism, solidifying ties with labor groups, black and Latino parents, and civil rights organizations to acquire greater school and community resources. It also militantly fought to improve working conditions for teachers while championing broader social concerns. For the first time, Taylor reveals the union's early growth and the somewhat illegal attempts by the Board of Education to eradicate the group. He describes how the infamous Red Squad and other undercover agents worked with the board to bring down the union and how the union and its opponents wrestled with charges of anti-Semitism.

Schoolteacher sleuth Miss Withers finds a dead body during detention in this mystery starring “one of the world’s shrewdest and most amusing detectives” (The New York Times). Anise Halloran is young to be teaching school, and much too pretty, but third-grade teacher Hildegarde Withers is not the sort to condemn a coworker just because she wears high heels. When she overhears nine-year-old Buster Jones spreading rumors about Miss Halloran being sweet on the principal, Miss Withers orders the schoolyard quarterback to write discipline on the chalkboard one hundred times. Anise Halloran stays late after school, too. In fact, she stays forever. Miss Withers finds Anise in the cloakroom, her head bashed in, and her high heels strewn across the floor. She sends Buster to fetch Inspector Piper, the hard-nosed detective whom she occasionally assists with murder inquiries, but by the time he arrives, the body has vanished. There is a killer inside the elementary school, and Buster Jones is not the only person whom Miss Withers will have to teach a lesson about discipline.

The children whose stories are told in Nobody Don't Love Nobody share one thing in common: they all live with their families in a homeless shelter's family dormitory, where they can stay for up to three months. And most of them attend classes at the School With No Name, a public school classroom at the shelter, where Stacey Bess is their teacher. Their stories do much to humanize the face of homelessness today and emphasize that the homeless are not simply a population of aimless or alcoholic, single men. But mostly these stories show how love and respect can change and empower a life. When the children are befriended by their teacher, their peers, an NBA all-star, and other members of the community who take the time to reach out, the children respond in kind with remarkable offerings of their own.

This book is the legacy of twenty years of mathematics teaching: part philosophy, part humour, and completely fascinating.

A captivating meditation on education from the author of The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop In Blackboard, Lewis Buzbee looks back over a lifetime of experiences in schools and classrooms, from kindergarten to college and beyond. He offers fascinating histories of the key ideas informing educational practice over the centuries, which have shaped everything from class size to the layout of desks and chairs. Buzbee deftly weaves his own biography into this overview, approaching his subject as a student, a father, and a teacher. In so doing, he offers a moving personal testament to how he, "an average student" in danger of flunking out of high school, became the first in his family to graduate from college. He credits his success to the well-funded California public school system and bemoans the terrible price that state is paying as a result of funding being cut from today's budgets. For Buzbee, the blackboard is a precious window into the wider world, which we ignore at our peril. "Both anecdotal and eloquent, The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop is a tribute to those who crave the cozy confines of a bookshop, a place to be ‘alone among others' and savor a bountiful literary buffet." —Booklist (starred review)

A photographic exploration of mathematicians’ chalkboards “A mathematician, like a painter or poet, is a maker of patterns,” wrote the British mathematician G. H. Hardy. In Do Not Erase, photographer Jessica Wynne presents remarkable examples of this idea through images of mathematicians’ chalkboards. While other fields have replaced chalkboards with whiteboards and digital presentations, mathematicians remain loyal to chalk for puzzling out their ideas and communicating their research. Wynne offers more than one hundred stunning photographs of these chalkboards, gathered from a diverse group of mathematicians around the world. The photographs are accompanied by essays from each mathematician, reflecting on their work and processes. Together, pictures and words provide an illuminating meditation on the unique relationships among mathematics, art, and creativity. The mathematicians featured in this collection comprise exciting new voices alongside established figures, including Sun-Yung Alice Chang, Alain Connes, Misha Gromov, Andre Neves, Kasso Okoudjou, Peter Shor, Christina Sormani, Terence Tao, Claire Voisin, and many others. The companion essays give insights into how the chalkboard serves as a special medium for mathematical expression. The volume also includes an introduction by the author, an afterword by New Yorker writer Alec Wilkinson, and biographical information for each contributor. Do Not Erase is a testament to the myriad ways that mathematicians use their chalkboards to reveal the conceptual and visual beauty of their discipline—shapes, figures, formulas, and conjectures created through imagination, argument, and speculation.

All those who say that we cannot travel back in time, come along with me on this journey and relive the most joyous moments of our lives – our childhood. This is not a book, but my heart that you are holding in your hands right now, unfolding the mischievous but harmless activities, I used to indulge in along with my friends at school. All the characters in the book are real and truly funny. I am sure you would be able to relate yourself and your childhood friends with many of the characters described in the book. In a nutshell, this is the story of everyone's childhood irrespective of age, nationality, caste, creed, religion, language, ethnicity or gender for that matter. I guarantee you that after reading this book, the impact would be so strong that you will be compelled to reach out to your friends with whom you haven’t been in touch with in a long time. So, tighten your seat belts as we are all set to begin an amazing and thrilling roller coaster ride called "Anecdotes Behind The Blackboard". Happy Reading!!!

Contributed articles.