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Book Club
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The VCSP Book Club is designed to give members the opportunity to gain a greater knowledge of their service through reading, while gaining hours toward their service term. Each book review may be worth up to a total of 10 training hours. Full-time members may may complete up to 6 book reviews and part-time members up to 3 reviews. Members are limited to one review per month. After reading the book, members should submit a review using the 'Book Review Form' found below to gain hours. On this page, you will find a list of pre-approved books. These books may be selected without further approval for a review. If you would like to choose a book that is not on the list please submit a request, using the book review form to Joan for approval prior to reviewing the book. VCSP Book List: Black Students / Middle Class Teachersby Jawanza Kunjufu This compelling look at the relationship between the majority of African American students and their teachers provides answers and solutions to the hard-hitting questions facing education in today's black and mixed-race communities. Are teachers prepared by their college education departments to teach African American children? Are schools designed for middle-class children and, if so, what are the implications for the 50 percent of African Americans who live below the poverty line? Is the major issue between teachers and students class or racial difference? Why do some of the lowest test scores come from classrooms where black educators are teaching black students? How can parents negotiate with schools to prevent having their children placed in special education programs? Also included are teaching techniques and a list of exemplary schools that are successfully educating African Americans. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival Of American Community by Robert D. Putnam In a groundbreaking book based on vast new data, Putnam shows how we have become increasingly disconnected from family, friends, neighbors, and our democratic structures-- and how we may reconnect. Character Matters: How to Help Our Children Develop Good Judgment, Integrity, and Other Essential Virtues by Thomas Lickona Lickona plucks the burden of moral corruption from society at large and plants it squarely in the laps of parents and teachers. He describes a society nearly bereft of character, and proposes that the solution is to awaken children's social consciences. Through a series of grim statistics and anecdotes from his research as a psychologist and educator, Lickona illuminates a culture that is lost (but not hopelessly), due largely to an overemphasis on academic achievement in lieu of formal character education. "The disturbing behaviors that bombard us daily-violence, greed, corruption, incivility, drug abuse, sexual immorality, and a poor work ethic-have a common core: the absence of good character." He defines 10 essential virtues that comprise good character and prescribes a six-part remedy, including modeling virtuous behavior, building a strong home-school partnership and getting involved with communities. Quotes from Aristotle, Martin Luther King Jr. and others make more eloquent points for why character matters, but the author's passion for creating a more civil and harmonious world is evident and inspiring. Lickona admits that changing the moral fiber of an entire generation is a lofty goal and that his solutions are ambitious: "The social-moral problems that beset our society have deep roots and require systematic solutions." However, this book can be one small step along that path, if it finds its way into the right hands.
Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most
byDouglas Stone We've all been there: We know we must confront a coworker, store clerk, or friend about some especially sticky situation--and we know the encounter will be uncomfortable. So we repeatedly mull it over until we can no longer put it off, and then finally stumble through the confrontation. Difficult Conversations, by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen, offers advice for handling these unpleasant exchanges in a manner that accomplishes their objective and diminishes the possibility that anyone will be needlessly hurt. The authors, associated with Harvard Law School and the Harvard Project on Negotiation, show how such dialogues actually comprise three separate components: the "what happened" conversation (verbalizing what we believe really was said and done), the "feelings" conversation (communicating and acknowledging each party's emotional impact), and the "identity" conversation (expressing the situation's underlying personal meaning). The explanations and suggested improvements are, admittedly, somewhat complicated. And they certainly don't guarantee positive results. But if you honestly are interested in elevating your communication skills, this book will walk you through both mistakes and remedies in a way that will boost your confidence when such unavoidable clashes arise. The End of Blackness by Debrah Dickerson In order to make progress possible, blacks have to give up on the past-that's the core argument of this inflammatory, cogently written book. Dickerson, a lawyer and journalist, continues the examination of black self-reliance that she introduced in her first book, An American Story. This time, however, she leaves her own experiences out of it and focuses on breaking down racial myths, social concepts and prejudices with the help of statistics and citations by such figures as W.E.B. Du Bois, Frederick Douglass and James Baldwin. Racism, according to the author, "is compounded by black cooperation and by fruitless black jousts with intransigence, while winnable victories are ignored because they do not center on whites and because they are unglamorous." Dismissing Afrocentrism as "self-eliminative and isolationist," Dickerson encourages blacks to focus on their own talents and ignore the expectations of whites and other blacks. She fearlessly condemns the black community for defending the actions of O.J. Simpson and Marion Barry, and for scorning "Uncle Tom" figures like Julian Abele, a black architect who designed Duke University in the 1920s despite its whites-only policy preventing him from ever visiting the campus. "The great architect never got to see his creation, but those for whom he left it in trust-knowledge seekers of all races and nationalities-do. Thank God he was an Uncle Tom," she writes. Few of the book's assertions are new or groundbreaking, but Dickerson updates and expands the arguments by using references to current television sitcoms, mass-mailed Internet jokes that reinforce stereotypes and the emergence of hip-hop artists as individualistic thinkers to back up her statements. Addressing an incendiary issue in a straightforward and un-self-serving manner, this polemic is likely to provoke thoughtful discussion. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In by Roger Fisher , William L. Ury We're constantly negotiating in our lives, whether it's convincing the kids to do their homework or settling million-dollar lawsuits. For those who need help winning these battles, Roger Fisher has developed a simple and straightforward five-step system for how to behave in negotiations. Narrated soothingly by NPR announcer Bob Edwards, Fisher adds the meaty portions of the material with a sense of playfulness. The blend of voices makes this tape easy to listen to, especially the real-life negotiating scenarios, in which negotiating examples are given. This is a must-have tape for every businessperson's car. For Hearing People Only: Answers to the Most Commonly Asked Questions About the Deaf Community, Its Culture, and the "Deaf Reality" by Matthew S. Moore (Author), Linda Levitan (Author), Harlan Lane (Foreword) For The Common Good by Herman E. Daly and John B Cobb, Jr. A Pushing for economic growth above all else, industrial nations ignore the damage done to the biosphere by the profligate use of energy and scarce resources. Daly, a World Bank economist, and Cobb, a philosopher-theologian, set forth a detailed, far-reaching blueprint for a highly decentralized economy built around small communities, scaled to human needs and stewardship of the planet. Their important, radical critique of contemporary economic thinking in the book's dry first half leads to specific proposals in the second. These include a tax on industrial polluters, worker participation in management and ownership, reduced military expenditures and a self-sufficient national economy that relies less on imports. In place of gross national product, they put forth an "index of sustainable economic welfare" as a yardstick of true growth Framework for Understanding Poverty by Ruby K. Payne A Framework for Understanding Poverty teaches the hidden rules of economic class and spreads the message that, despite the obstacles poverty can create in all types of interaction, there are specific strategies for overcoming them. Through case studies, personal stories and observations that produce some aha! moments, Payne clearly strikes a chord in her readers., and provides a hopeful message. Hesselbein on Leadership by Frances Hesselbein Frances Hesselbein's views on leadership have attracted fans since the one-time Johnstown, Pennsylvania, troop leader became CEO of Girl Scouts of the USA in 1976 and turned that venerable but struggling organization around. Now in Hesselbein on Leadership the current chairman and founding president of the Drucker Foundation has compiled 19 essays that lay out the philosophy she honed during those experiences and in years since--a philosophy that today draws more admirers than ever, such as Jim Collins, who wrote the book's foreword. In a disarmingly simple manner, Hesselbein offers her underlying definition of the topic at hand ("leadership is a matter of how to be, not how to do it") and spells out nuances and specifics that those atop any private, public or nonprofit organization would do well to absorb. Throughout the book she shows how character determines performance, how a willingness to innovate and a desire to make a difference regularly bring results, and how the best leaders actually turn a vision into the spark needed to ignite their enterprise. There is plenty of pragmatic advice here amidst the theoretical, and in light of Hesselbein's wealth of provocative yet practical insights, the only complaint may be that this collection is a little on the slim side. --Howard Rothman How to Talk so Kids Can Learn By Adele Faber & Elaine Mazlish A breakthrough guide telling parents and teachers how to handle one of the burning issues of our day: how to motivate kids to succeed in school at a time when schools are rife with violence and many students are openly rebellious. Faber and Mazlish adapt their unique, time-tested communication strategies to the specific concerns of the classroom. Once again utilizing the dramatically effective "dialogue" technique, they illustrate how to use this method to help kids handle the schoolwork and behavioral and peer problems that interfere with the learning process. How to Get Your Child to Love Reading By Esmé Raji Codell Here are hundreds of easy and inventive ideas, innovative projects, creative activities, and inspiring suggestions that have been shared, tried, and proven with children from birth through eighth grade. This five-hundred-page volume is brimming with themes for superlative story times and book-based birthday parties, ideas for mad-scientist experiments and half-pint cooking adventures, stories for reluctant readers and book groups for boys, step-by-step instructions for book parades, book-related crafts, storytelling festivals, literature-based radio broadcasts, readers' theater, and more. I Am A Pencil: A Teacher, His Kids, and Their World of Stories by Sam Swope In 1995, writer Sam Swope gave a workshop to a third-grade class in a Queens school bursting at the seams with kids from around the world. So enchanted was he with his twenty-eight students that he "adopted" the class for three years, teaching them to write stories and poems. I Am a Pencil is the story of his years with this very special group of students. It is as funny, warm, heartbreaking, and hopeful as the children themselves. Swope follows his colorful troop of resilient writers from grades three to five, coaxing out their stories, watching talents blossom, explode, and sometimes fizzle. We meet Cindy (whose mom was a Taoist priestess), Brian (who cannot seem to tell the truth), and Lourdes (a wacky Dominican chatterbox). Preparing his students for a world of adult dangers, Swope is astonished by their courage, their humanity, and most of all, their strength. I Am a Pencil is a book about the power and magic of imagination, providing a unique window on the immigrant experience as seen through the lives of children. *Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv Today's kids are increasingly disconnected from the natural world, says child advocacy expert Louv (Childhood's Future; Fatherlove; etc.), even as research shows that "thoughtful exposure of youngsters to nature can... be a powerful form of therapy for attention-deficit disorder and other maladies." Instead of passing summer months hiking, swimming and telling stories around the campfire, children these days are more likely to attend computer camps or weight-loss camps: as a result, Louv says, they've come to think of nature as more of an abstraction than a reality. Indeed, a 2002 British study reported that eight-year-olds could identify Pokémon characters far more easily than they could name "otter, beetle, and oak tree." Gathering thoughts from parents, teachers, researchers, environmentalists and other concerned parties, Louv argues for a return to an awareness of and appreciation for the natural world. Not only can nature teach kids science and nurture their creativity, he says, nature needs its children: where else will its future stewards come from? Louv's book is a call to action, full of warnings—but also full of ideas for change. Agent, James Levine. (May 20) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. The Missing Class: Portraits of the Near Poor in America by Katherine S. Newman, Victor Tan Chen In this compassionate and clear-eyed analysis, sociologist Newman and journalist Chen posit that the middle class gains of the 1990s have been imperiled by the recent rollback of New Deal–style government aid. Millions of Americans climbed above the poverty line at the end of the 20th century, but since then, the risk of falling back has grown substantially. This policy-oriented collection of case studies addresses the plight of the 57 million near-poor, a largely overlooked missing class just out of reach of public assistance. Despite decent wages, the authors argue, the near-poor are saddled with various burdens that keep them hovering one disaster away from outright poverty and put their children at high risk of sliding down the economic ladder. Drawing on interviews conducted from 1995 to 2002 with families and public service professionals in the New York area, the authors chart in alternately uplifting and dismal detail the distinct perspectives of several low-income households. While they don't address those entering the missing class from above and perhaps too easily extrapolate from their conclusions, Newman and Chen contribute significantly to the dialogue on America's widening inequities. Mom, They’re Teasing Me: Helping Your Child Solve Social Problems By Michael Thompson This book is aimed at helping parents put things in perspective, learn about what children often don't reveal, and find the balance between agonizing over every slight and overlooking significant problems. The book is divided into three sections: normal social pain, children at risk, and school and neighborhood problems. Using research and case studies, Thompson and Cohen help parents deal with a range of social problems, including teasing, rejection, fights, bullying, and cruelty. Just as important, they help parents distinguish between the kind of social antagonisms that can traumatize a child and the kind that are just part of growing up. Next Steps: Life After AmeriCorps Workbook This can be downloaded from AmeriCorps website at: http://nationalserviceresources.org/resources/online_pubs/americorps/nextsteps_pdf.php Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America By Barbara Ehrenreich A close observer and astute analyzer of American life, Ehrenreich turns her attention to what it is like trying to subsist while working in low-paying jobs. Inspired to see what boom times looked like from the bottom, she hides her real identity and attempts to make a life on a salary of just over $300 per week after taxes. She is often forced to work at two jobs, leaving her time and energy for little else than sleeping and working. Ehrenreich vividly describes her experiences living in isolated trailers and dilapidated motels while working as a nursing-home aide, a Wal-Mart "sales associate," a cleaning woman, a waitress, and a hotel maid in three states Florida, Maine, and Minnesota. Her narrative is candid, often moving, and very revealing. Looking back on her experiences, Ehrenreich claims that the hardest thing for her to accept is the "invisibility of the poor"; one sees them daily in restaurants, hotels, discount stores, and fast-food chains but one doesn't recognize them as "poor" because, after all, they have jobs. No real answers to the problem but a compelling sketch of its reality and pervasiveness.
Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life,
by Marshall Rosenberg
Do you hunger for skills to improve the quality of your relationships, to deepen your sense of personal empowerment or to simply communicate more effectively? Unfortunately, for centuries our culture has taught us to think and speak in ways that can actually perpetuate conflict, internal pain and even violence. Nonviolent Communication partners practical skills with a powerful consciousness and vocabulary to help you get what you want peacefully.
Race: How Blacks and Whites Think and Feel About the American Obsession by Studs Terkel First published in 1992 at the height of the furor over the Rodney King incident, Studs Terkel's Race was an immediate bestseller. In a rare and revealing look how at how people in America truly feel about race, Terkel brings out the full complexity of the thoughts and emotions of both blacks and whites, uncovering a fascinating narrative of changing opinions. Preachers and street punks, college students and Klansmen, interracial couples, the nephew of the founder of apartheid, and Emmett Till's mother are among those whose voices appear in Race. In all, nearly one hundred Americans talk openly about attitudes that few are willing to admit in public: feelings about affirmative action, gentrification, secret prejudices, and dashed hopes. Rachel & Her Children: Homeless Families in America By Jonathan Kozol Here are the less visible homeless women and children living in shelters and hotels under degrading conditions. Kozol, introduces us to some of those at the bottom of America's underclass, the residents of a hotel for the homeless in New York, which can only be described as a house of horrors. Kozol faults everyone involved: governments, social agencies, landlords, the courts, and indifferent Americans in general for permitting the perpetuation of the shocking conditions endured by homeless families. This book could be the incentive needed to spark humane solutions. Raising Everyday Heroes: Parenting Children to be Self-Reliant By Elisa Medhus Written for parents, teachers, counselors, and everyone else involved with raising children, this book emphasizes the need for kids to learn how to make smart decisions in the face of today’s permissive culture and strong peer pressure. Many parents go to great lengths to protect their children from dangerous influences, boredom, want, and even the consequences of the kids’ own choices, but Elisa Medhus believes this doesn’t allow kids to develop the skills they need to be successful adults. She tells readers how to give their children opportunities to overcome adversity while still in a loving family environment, so they can develop internal wisdom, creative problem-solving skills, and basic common sense. Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls By Mary Pipher From her work as a psychotherapist for adolescent females, Pipher here posits and persuasively argues her thesis that today's teenaged girls are coming of age in "a girl-poisoning culture." Backed by anecdotal evidence and research findings, she suggests that, despite the advances of feminism, young women continue to be victims of abuse, self-mutilation (e.g., anorexia), consumerism and media pressure to conform to others' ideals. With sympathy and focus she cites case histories to illustrate the struggles required of adolescent girls to maintain a sense of themselves among the mixed messages they receive from society, their schools and, often, their families. Pipher offers concrete suggestions for ways by which girls can build and maintain a strong sense of self, e.g., keeping a diary, observing their social context as an anthropologist might, distinguishing between thoughts and feelings. The Servant as Leader by Robert K. Greenleaf A Framework for Understanding Poverty by Ruby K. PayneA Framework for Understanding Poverty teaches the hidden rules of economic class and spreads the message that, despite the obstacles poverty can create in all types of interaction, there are specific strategies for overcoming them. Through case studies, personal stories and observations that produce some aha! moments, Payne clearly strikes a chord in her readers., and provides a hopeful message. The Soul of A Citizen by Paul Rogat Loeb These are indeed cynical times. But to hide behind the smugness of cynicism is a kind of self-imposed death sentence, explains writer and social commentator Paul Loeb. In fact, now is the ideal time for gathering all our strengths and wisdom as spiritual beings and applying ourselves to shaping a better world, he claims.Are we talking social activism here? Well, yes. But before you cringe from images of shrill, humorless, burned out activists, keep in mind that Loeb is talking about a new kind of activism--an exciting, spiritual model for creating social change. We don't have to be pious or martyred saints (as he explains throughout one chapter), starving ourselves in the name of a cause or staging protests in freezing rain. We can be "good enough" activists, assuming the task of helping 10 people in need rather than taking on the globe. We can remember the power of storytelling when convincing an audience, rather than angrily spewing scary facts. We can replenish ourselves so that we do not burn out. We can emphasize themes such as community and forgiveness rather than separatism and blame.This is a deeply spiritual book, but make no mistake: Loeb's writing, research, and integrity are as solid as they come. Soul of a Citizen may well become The Handbook for activism at the turn of the century. --Gail Hudson The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman Lia Lee was born in 1981 to a family of recent Hmong immigrants, and soon developed symptoms of epilepsy. By 1988 she was living at home but was brain dead after a tragic cycle of misunderstanding, overmedication, and culture clash: "What the doctors viewed as clinical efficiency the Hmong viewed as frosty arrogance." The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is a tragedy of Shakespearean dimensions, written with the deepest of human feeling. Sherwin Nuland said of the account, "There are no villains in Fadiman's tale, just as there are no heroes. People are presented as she saw them, in their humility and their frailty--and their nobility." We Are the Freedom People: Sharing Our Stories… By D'Ann Uraniak Lesch (Editor), Jennifer L. O'Donoghue (Editor) We Are the Freedom People reads like a conversation between diverse people reflecting the struggle to be American. The voices of Hmong people who fled Laos after the Secret War, their children, college students, and other engaged citizens are woven together in this collection of stories which grew out of the work at the Jane Adams School for Democracy, on the West Side of St. Paul, Minnesota. As the foundation of a community, relationships are strengthened by our stories. It is our stories that reveal our common struggles and collective power to shape a vibrant America. What Do You Stand For? by Jim Lichtman Ethics is not about what we say or what we intend, it's about what we do. This is the heart of Integrity - demonstrating a consistency between ethical principle and practice. Who we are is never more clearly revealed than in the daily moments of our lives. How we respond to some of those moments reveals whether we stand up for our principles or rationalize our way around them. Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together In The Cafeteria? by Beverly Daniel Tatum Anyone who's been to a high school or college has noted how students of the same race seem to stick together. Beverly Daniel Tatum has noticed it too, and she doesn't think it's so bad. As she explains in this provocative, though not-altogether-convincing book, these students are in the process of establishing and affirming their racial identity. As Tatum sees it, blacks must secure a racial identity free of negative stereotypes. The challenge to whites, on which she expounds, is to give up the privilege that their skin color affords and to work actively to combat injustice in society. The Words We Live By by Linda R. Monk The U.S. Constitution gets a comprehensive overview in this engaging blend of history and commentary. Monk, author of The Bill of Rights: A User's Guide, traces the history and consequences of each part of this vital document in a line-by-line analysis of the original seven articles and the 27 amendments. Drawing on the writings of constitutional scholars, Supreme Court Justices and concerned citizens like Charlton Heston, playwright Arthur Miller and rock star Ted Nugent, she also gives even-handed but lively accounts of the debates over such Constitutional controversies as the right to bear arms, the right to privacy, church-state separation and capital punishment. The portrait of the Constitution that emerges is a mixture of the sublime and the ridiculous. Some parts, like the Civil War amendments that defined citizenship and equality in granting them to African-Americans, are terse milestones in our evolving understanding of freedom, while elsewhere the Constitution seems like a scratch-pad for ill-considered ideas like the hastily repealed Prohibition Amendment. Monk avoids comparisons with other countries' charters that might have illuminated the Constitution's idiosyncrasies, and skirts deeper critiques, like Daniel Lazare's argument that the Constitution's overall structure of states' rights, separation of powers and checks and balances hobbles rather than effectuates the will of the people. Still, this is a fine introduction to Constitutional history for a general readership laid out rather like a good social studies textbook. Illus.
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