subtext

I finished “Push” by Saphire last night., a sad horrible good book. My emotions were played like a piano. I remember as a child wondering about my dad crying at sappy movies; now I just wonder how I can be so much like him when he died when I was seventeen. Of course this thought makes me think of Precious in Push overcoming her wretched parents: is that possible considering how abusive and destructive they were to her. I know the redemtive ending is heartwarming and all, but is it really a reality? Can literacy and a few caring people really become so transformative? It would be nice to think so. Rosenblatt seemed to think that reading could change the world; while I agree that literacy can be life changing/affirming, I am not sure it can save someone so quickly who had been crushed down so completely. I did enjoy the contrast between the positivist therapist using the test score data to catergorize and marginalize Precious, as oppossed to Rain Blue focusing on the individuals in her class and the power of the word. Made me happy, after reading a memo from central office about a workshop on how to teach the students to write higher scoring short answer questions. One final comment for this entry. When I mentioned to one of my students that I read “Push” last night, she got excited and wanted to talk about it. She had read it over the summer, and has been loaning it out to friends since then. She was surprised that I had read it for a “college’ class; that seemed to legitimize the book in a “school” way to her.