Whatever It Takes

16. Read 30 books I haven’t read before (in addition to the above) and blog about them. (6/30)

Whatever It Takes
by Paul Tough

This is a book I've been wanting to read ever since I first heard about it last year.  It's about Geoffrey Canada, the head of Harlem Children's Zone and the creator of Baby College, a program in Harlem that teaches new and upcoming parents about contemporary parenting techniques.  The grand scope of Canada's goal is to solve the problem of poverty (how's that for ambitious?) and he determined that the best way to go about this is the "conveyor belt" scenario.  When low-income, inner city young adults are pregnant, he enrolls them in Baby College and they learn about things that middle-class families seem to find out about on their own: why reading to your baby/child is important, nutrition for pregnant women, nutrition for babies and children, the importance of an intact family unit (i.e. two parents), the importance of attending school, the argument against corporal punishment, etc. The conveyor belt continues throughout the child's life (in theory): they (and their parents) are enrolled in the Three Year Journey (like Baby College but with three-year-olds), and then preschool, and then kindergarten and up in the related charter school.  These children would then go on to college, graduate successfully, and bring their success and initiative back to Harlem and other cities.  The idea behind all of this is that low-income children do not have models of success in their lives.  More than half the men they know have been in jail, almost no one they know has gone to college, many haven't completed high school, and many are unemployed and underemployed.  Canada calls it "infection theory" - if he can "infect" the neighborhood with models of success, they will then spur more success, and so on, until Harlem is no longer an impoverished neighborhood. I think his work is brilliant and am happy that President Obama is a fan of this program and wants to expand it to twenty other urban areas (including Camden NJ).  I hope that the expansion can be approved and funded, which will be hard in these times, I recognize - but what better thing is there to invest in than the education of the future leaders and citizens of this country? I highly, highly recommend this book to anyone interested in childhood education.