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Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me

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Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me

By: Kate Clanchy
Narrated by: Kate Clanchy
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About this listen

With a new afterword.

Kate Clanchy wants to change the world and thinks school is an excellent place to do it. She invites you to meet some of the kids she has taught in her thirty-year career.

Join her as she explains everything about sex to a classroom of thirteen-year-olds. As she works in the school 'Inclusion Unit', trying to improve the fortunes of kids excluded from regular lessons because of their terrifying power to end learning in an instant. Or as she nurtures her multicultural poetry group, full of migrants and refugees, watches them find their voice and produce work of heartbreaking brilliance.

While Clanchy doesn't deny stinging humiliations or hide painful accidents, she celebrates this most creative, passionate and practically useful of jobs. Teaching today is all too often demeaned, diminished and drastically under-resourced. Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me will show you why it shouldn't be.

©2019 Kate Clanchy (P)2022 Swift Press Audio Education Educators Professionals & Academics

Critic reviews

"The best book on teachers and children and writing that I've ever read. No-one has said better so much of what so badly needs saying." (Philip Pullman)
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I was intrigued to hear this having heard the controversies about it, and whether its perspective might be personal. in fact it is written very sensitively to be sympathetic to those from all ethnic and cultural backgrounds. yes, it starts from a white middle class viewpoint, but the author is white and middle class. what might be racist would be to try to present herself as something else, something neutral and omnipotent: of telling purely objective 'truths'. the subjective nature is honest, but humble and sympathetic, and the point of the book is to explain what she has learnt from her reactions to folk not like her. I must admit I found the approach honest and inspiring.

thoughtful

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I came to this book as a result of hearing Katie Razzall being interviewed about her podcast series which covers the author's 'cancellation'.

I kept expecting to be offended, to be shocked to be outraged at her cultural insensitivity.

What I found, on the contrary, was a love letter from the author to all of those whom she encountered: pupils, teachers, parents – all of them are treated with understanding and curiosity.

The baying hordes who chased her across social media have in fact done her a favour by making her work available to a wider audience, proving in the process that she was right to create this book and they were so mistaken to try to trash it.

A Triumph of Compassion and Understanding

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nothing to dislike it taught me alot about how we treat kids and how negatively people are viewed in some circles even though they are doing fantastic difficult work that is immensely beneficial to children that desperately need it

outstanding listen inspirational teacher. 100 % recommend ..

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This book changed the way I think about poetry and the benefits it can have for children with a different story.

The Honesty and Compassion

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A sensitive writing worth listening to. Relatable and empathetic, A hard subject helping children in this current education system

Thoughtful, powerful. Thank you

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