Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Mrs. Thomas
UWRT 1101-103
10/10/14
The background of the book cover is a solid white color with the title of the book in a
solid black color. In the foreground, the secondary title of the book and authors information are
written in black and red inside of a text box. Behind that, there are 5 pencils- one red, one
orange, one yellow, one green, and one blue. The colors of the pencils are of that of the
simplified rainbow, which is something that children learn about in elementary school, the
foundation of their success. All of the pencils, except the blue one, are broken. This blue, fullysharpened pencil resembles the successful child that goes above and beyond all of the others. The
simplicity and cleanliness of the book cover is attractive to many people, especially researchersthat the book includes- who usually like to keep things very symmetrical and organized.
Misunderstand Ourselves. Of all of the book reviews I could have chosen, I figured that this
review would be the most accurate due to the reviewers credibility on multiple levels.
This book review includes multiple direct quotes from the book with Anne Murphys
reflections and research findings following them. She also refers back to some of Toughs
findings in his previous book, Whatever It Takes, where he followed educator Geoffrey Canadas
efforts to turn his organization, the Harlem Childrens Zone, into a system that would carry the
neighborhoods children from infancy to adulthood. She compares his large scale view of
success in this story to his small stories of success in How Children Succeed. All in all, the
conclusion is made that the children experience the effects of the parents choices, and lack
thereof, the greatest.
She states in her review that although the title How Children Succeed makes the book
sound like an instruction manual for parents, its really a guide to the ironies and perversities of
income inequality in America. She talks about Toughs reflection of dropping out of college and
that he was extremely lucky to be able to experience college and realize that it wasn't meant for
him and still be successful. In relation to the fact that fewer and fewer young people are getting
the character-building combination of support and autonomy that Tough was fortunate enough to
receive, she ends her book review with a very important and insightful question, which is the
question I want to leave the reader with as well. For who will have the conscientiousness, the
persistence, and the grit to change it? In simpler terms, this is asking the question of who is
going to have the conscious ability, the persistence, and the courage to provide children with the
support that Tough was given.
I am going first preface this. This is an article based on the keys to success for British
school-children. Although this article is not based on American children, like How Children
Succeed is, the information provided is both applicable and useful. Leon Feinstein is a researcher
at the Centre for Economic Performance and University College London. Feinstein, based on his
research, discusses how parental involvement determines the level of the childs success. It
includes a hypothesis, an experiment that confirms the hypothesis, and an explanation of it all.
The article itself is written on the basis of factual and experimental evidence. The article doesn't
include any true opinionated statements, which gives it the maximum amount of credibility.
In 1997, Feinstein and Symons looks at the determination of educational outcomes.
Teachers were asked to assess parental interest in education of their children at 7, 11, and 16
years old. Early users of this data were concerned that parents may become more interested, or
fake being interested, in the performance of their child, making the data invalid. This data gave
Feinstein and Symons the ability to look at the interest of parents as their children got older. The
study suggested that there is in fact a direct correlation with parental interest and the childs
success rather than direct effects of social class. The quote, Although parental interest in
education tends to be much greater for parents in professional occupations, it is the interest
that explains educational performance... rather than the social group, is a conclusion of the
findings based on the experiment.