Michelle Kuo

"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"--Amazon.com.

A Teacher, a Student, and a Life-changing Friendship

Reading with Patrick

Nadine 

Hope and despair in nearly equal parts. This book at once celebrates the potential of individuals devoting themselves to trying to effect change and the futility of systems and structures are designed by omission or commission to a undermine those efforts.
Ironically Patrick probably received a better grounding in classical literature than I did with a better teacher. But the difference between 12 years of consistent education and two years of fleeting education while a lot of other s$$t is going down in a hopeless macro environment is insurmountable. 
As educators & learners too there was an important message on how learning has to be sustained and practiced for it not to slide back or disappear.

Jill Niemeier 

As a young English teacher keen to make a difference in the world, Michelle Kuo took a job at a tough school in the Mississippi Delta, sharing books and poetry with a young African-American teenager named Patrick and his classmates. For the first time, these kids began to engage with ideas and dreams beyond their small town, and to gain an insight into themselves that they had never had before. Two years later, Michelle left to go to law school; but Patrick began to lose his way, ending up jailed for murder. And that’s when Michelle decided that her work was not done, and began to visit Patrick once a week, and soon every day, to read with him again. 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, and a love letter to literature and its power to transcend social barriers.

Reading with Patrick A Teacher, a Student, and a Life-changing Friendship

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