Book Focus

An Updated Classic

Other People’s Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom (The New Press) has been required reading for student teachers since it was first published in 1995, and Lisa Delpit’s essays on teaching in a multicultural society have solidly stood the test of time. But as the MacArthur Fellow notes in her new introduction, a lot has happened in the past decade—NCLB and Katrina, for starters. Delpit asks educators to imagine a 100-year-old man on his deathbed in 2092. He’s led a full life, but he has one regret: “I just really wish with all my heart that I could have scored higher on the state-mandated achievement tests.” Where there’s humor to be found, Delpit depicts it, but be prepared to move outside your comfort zone and to learn something new about you and your students: her insights and analysis are as rigorous as they are engaging.

—Rebecca L. Weber