A Moving Account of the Struggles and Achievements of America's Educationally Underprepared

The book "Lives on the Baundary", is an awesome book, that should be read by every teacher and student in the world. This book gives a lot of exemples on how a single teacher makes a difference in some schools in the community of El Monte and Baldwin Park. This book is one of the best books I have ever read. I encourage you to read it.

The hero in this success story is Mike Rose: author, educator, teacher of writing, and a disadvantaged student from the Los Angeles ghetto. Mike barely made it, but a young, new English teacher intervened in his high school, equipping Mike with the intellectual tools that enabled him to enter and succeed in college his "pivotal...freshman year" (165). Mike Rose's career has largely consisted of culling and applying the social and intellectual tools, the habits of mind that empower underprepared students on the margins of society, helping them transition into college. He knows the psychology of disenfranchisement, and also the defunct English curriculum that plagues many schools. But like many Americans, our hero believes in education, and at the center of education, according to Rose, are community, language and strategies of thinking."This is a hopeful book about those who fail" (xi), Rose begins, and the hope he communicates lies in his ability to teach teachers to empower their students with academic literacy. His book models his teaching, and so a reasonable review will evaluate how well Mike Rose's book fulfills his didactic design and practical hope. I evaluate Lives on the Boundary, therefore, according to how well it engages his audience, the usefulness of its educational doctrines, and how well it inspires hope, confidence and a passion for teaching. From the outset, I cannot hold back how well I think Mike Rose accomplishes his task. I highly recommend his book to new composition teachers with the hope that we may reach our students and not fail them. Does Rose engage his audience, an audience of educators and writing teachers? His book reads quickly and fluidly, and this is a strategic and effective part of Rose's educational engagement. He could have written a thin, systematic treatise on how to teach "'bonehead' English" (2), but he leaves the process of education in its social context-an engagement of relationships, struggles, discoveries and transitions. The social context is exciting because Rose leads the reader through his intellectual discoveries as he develops his literacy and pedagogy. He lets the reader travel with him, back and forth from ghetto to academy, reflecting deeply together on the cross-boundary teaching-learning process. He believes in the "healing possibilities of the teacher-student relationship" (123), and his writing style is powerful, making readers into disciples. What are Rose's educational doctrines? Rose communicates three practical principles that guide his pedagogy: literacy is social, the academy is a community, and pedagogy is strategic. These three principles engage students at different stages in their intellectual development. However, Rose observes that much English education fails to engage students because it is focused not on the social and strategic, but towards the subskills of grammatical analysis and the "dry dismembering of language" (110).First, Rose argues that writi

Lives on the Boundary is a refreshing look at children lost in between schooling and curriculum where so many children still find themselves today. Mike Rose deliberately askes questions about teachers, school systems, and administrators who never truely teach but merely instruct. This is a wonderful book that provides inspiration for individuals that really want to make a difference in the lives of children.

This is such a refreshing and honest book on the underclass of America's students. Rose tells a great narrative of his own account of how he struggled and suffered through a world of education when in fact he had no idea what education was or meant. I read this and felt like" Hey I am not the only one who was once lost and confused about all this knowledge around me that I am so unprepared to learn and accept." A great read!

Drawing from his own experience, Mike Rose describes what it's like to grow up in the inner city...misdiagnosed by instructors as "remedial". His struggle to a position in a top university is not so much a tribute to him personally, but an account of how a student's life can be set on the right track if a teacher pays attention to certain cues. It's a story of hope, and should be required reading for English/composition instructors everywhere. -- Lisa Wijnands, Kansas City