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A Teacher, a Student, and a Life-Changing Friendship
by Michelle Kuo
Book Reviewed by:A memoir of race, inequality, and the power of literature told through the life-changing friendship between an idealistic young teacher and her gifted student, jailed for murder in the Mississippi Delta.
Recently graduated from Harvard University, Michelle Kuo arrived in the rural town of Helena, Arkansas, as a Teach for America volunteer in 2004, bursting with optimism and drive. But she soon encountered the jarring realities of life in one of the poorest counties in America, still disabled by the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow. In this stirring memoir, Kuo, the child of Taiwanese immigrants, shares the story of her complicated but rewarding mentorship of one student, Patrick Browning, and his remarkable literary and political awakening.
Convinced she can make a difference in the lives of her teenaged students, Michelle Kuo puts her heart into her work, using quiet reading time and guided writing to foster a sense of self in students left behind by a broken school system. Though Michelle loses some students to gun violence and truancy, she is inspired by students such as Patrick. Fifteen and in the eighth grade, Patrick begins to thrive under Michelle's exacting attention, rising to meet her rigorous expectations. However, after two years of teaching, Michelle feels pressure from her parents and the draw of opportunities outside the Delta, and leaves Arkansas to attend law school.
Years later, on the eve of her graduation, she learns that Patrick has been jailed for murder. Feeling that she had left the Delta prematurely, and determined to fix her mistake, Michelle returns to Helena and resumes Patrick's education - even as he sits in a jail cell awaiting trial. Every day for the next seven months they pore over classic novels, poems, and works of history. Little by little, Patrick grows into a confident, expressive writer and a dedicated reader galvanized by the works of Frederick Douglass, James Baldwin, Marilynne Robinson, W. S. Merwin, and others. In her time reading with Patrick, Michelle is herself transformed, contending with the legacy of racism and the question of what the privileged owe to those with bleaker prospects.
Reading with Patrick is an inspirational story of friendship, a coming-of-age story for both a young teacher and a student, an expansive, deeply resonant meditation on education, race, and justice in the rural South, and a love letter to literature and its power to transcend social barriers.
From page one, Michelle Kuo's extraordinary memoir, Reading with Patrick, pulled me into a journey from Arkansas to Harvard, and places in between. It challenged my assumptions about the label "murderer" and reinforced my own professional experience teaching at-risk students. Kuo's entertaining writing style and honesty fuel a deeper conversation about education, race, and justice in contemporary America...continued
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(Reviewed by Karen Lewis).
While finishing her undergraduate degree in 2004, Reading with Patrick author Michelle Kuo connects with a recruiter from Teach For America (TFA), which led her to teach in rural Arkansas. Each year, Teach For America places more than 5,000 pre-K – 12th grade teachers in high-need rural and urban schools across the United States through a network of 53 regional centers.
Teach For America began in 1989 as founder Wendy Kopp's undergraduate honors thesis, which articulated the possibility of creating a national teaching corps by recruiting recent college graduates. TFA affiliated with AmeriCorps in 1993. The programs are modeled after the Peace Corps and follow the legacy of John F. Kennedy who, in 1961, encouraged young ...
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I delighted in this book and read it in a single weekend. Reading with Patrick is a significant work that could swell the ranks of highly motivated and qualified teachers - people who understand they are not just transferring information but transforming lives.
