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Loading... School of Dreams: Making the Grade at a Top American High School (edition 2004)by Edward Humes
Work InformationSchool of Dreams: Making the Grade at a Top American High School by Edward Humes
   None No current Talk conversations about this book.  sacredheart25 | Sep 26, 2013 |  no reviews | add a review
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What is the price of an education at a top public high school? Whitney High delivers everything we ask of a school: a love of learning, a sense of mission, and SAT scores to die for. But there are unintended consequences to attending the school of our dreams, as author Edward Humes found during his year inside this world of high achievement and high pressure. Students work nearly around the clock, building futures to please parents as much as themselves. Their drug of choice? Caffeine. Their goal? Getting into a top college. Their biggest fear? Not living up to their families' stratospheric expectations. But what these kids have going for them is the extraordinary community within Whitney High-- a school with doors open seven days a week, where teachers love teaching and the students linger long after the school day ends. No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)373.794Social sciences Education Secondary; Academic; Preparatory North America West Coast U.S. CaliforniaLC ClassificationRatingAverage: (3.56)
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The bad part is that the style was off putting and I grew to dislike the writer as the book wore on. As a rule, Humes sets up opposites (a good guy and a bad guy) who battle it out every chapter. Some people favorably presented early on come out later stripped of their shining armour. It became tedious as a serious book, since this style is more suited to fiction. Whitney had been and continues to be one of the three top scoring schools for testing in the state. They were the reigning champions at the writing of the book. Humes notes, late in the book, that he was there as a volunteer writing tutor although he gives the impression that he is journalist doing a independant study of the school. Not genuine. I finished the book because I value reading about good students everywhere, more than for the drama of a year completed. Whitney has an abundance of them but they don't have a monopoly in the area by any means. I know the locale well, so it was fun to read of the tutor schools nearby, the pizza places for all-nighters, and the perfoming acts center and library. In many ways an excellent book, just not positive enough about the kids who are great on their own without having been 'noticed' by Humes. I guess you could say I was awakened from my dogmatic slumber of presuming objective writing from Mr. Humes. He has a certain way to turn people off, such as when he assumes it to be true that UC Irvine is so asian student dominated that some considered it 13th grade of Whitney High. NOT true at all. This book is a relic as it covers the intial stages of No Child Left Behind, the advent of the first lousy computer programs which taught nothing to great fanfare, and belittling the first MACs in favor Microsoft. Humes is at his best when he documents the kids themselves, and at his worst when he tries to look to the future. Although he tries to present a 'balanced' (both upsides and downsides) appraisal of Whitney HS, the place comes off like a dream come true once you do the math and factor out Mr. Humes. (