Gregory Michie’s Holler If You Hear Me is a book I had to read for my education class in college. At first, when it was assigned, like anything, I thought, “Oh great another book that’s going to be a waste of time especially for a small percentage of the grade that i’m going to get nothing out of. However, quite the opposite occurred once a I started actually reading. Of course, the title is a reference to the Tupac song of the same name. Recognizing this, I thought, what is this white man really doing with this reference for an education book? After reading it became clear, our students want us teachers to hear them and to have a voice, to be recognized. Michie’s purpose is to “shed light on the education of a teacher…“to allow space for our students to speak their minds, tell their stories, raise their voices” as he states in the introduction. Although he deals with many inner city students, the message can apply to any student. Michie describes there being two extremes to teaching saying in the introduction, ”On one hand are the horror stories, fueled by media reports that portray schools in chaos: incompetent administrators, hallways that are more dangerous than alleyways, students who lack even the most basic skills, parents who are uneducated and unconcerned. On the other hand is the occasional account of the miracle worker, that amazing super-teacher/savior who takes a ragtag group of city kids and turns their lives around overnight. Somewhere in between these two, between the miracles and the metal detectors, is where I teach.” Through a variety of stories, Michie deals with this and such teaching challenges as classroom discipline, teacher frustration, relationships with students, relationships with other teachers, racial and ethnic differences, student apathy, and navigation of restrictive school policies, among many others. Each chapter begins with a story told by Michie, followed by the reflections of his former students who figured prominently in the story. For example, in chapter two, Michie’s assumptions of a 12-year-old boy with a tough bravado, Hector, are transformed when a sobbing Hector reveals that after an argument with another student at camp, he is frightened because his little sister became sick earlier in the day and he wasn’t sure if she was okay. In the second half of the chapter, now 17-years-old Michie visits Hector at his home and finds him angry, having problems with his mother due to his gang involvement, violence at home, and unwillingness to go to school. Hector dropped out of school during seventh grade and has been in and out of various programs since, reveals his feeling that teachers “looked at him and saw a dumb gangbanger. A kid that needed to be put away forever” (p. 38). His desperate desire for a more restful existence are expressed in his wishes “to go far away. Real, real far away … away from this environment for a long, long time. Someplace different. Someplace where he can go and fish for the rest of my life” (p. 39). Michie states, “as a sixth grader, Hector had seemed so grown up to me much of the time. Now, as a 17-year-old, he seems unprepared to give way to adulthood” (p. 37). Throughout the book, Michie balances his tales of struggle, like this, with moments of joyous success. Not surprisingly, the successes are often related to the development of deeper connections between teacher and student. A very good read and insightful book, I highly recommend it. Michie’s concern for and commitment to his students shines in Holler If You Hear Me, and his questioning, wonderment, frustration, passion, and humor pull the reader along this journey of embodied education. While many of the issues raised are familiar, Holler If You Hear Me is a book of ordinary inspiration that will appeal to both teachers and students.

 

This is for an education project and instead of just writing a review online, I figured a blog on a popular social network may be able to bring more awareness to such a good book and I could recommend it to many more people, not just people involved in education. I tried posting a video on YouTube, but after many bad takes and bad luck of the video not uploading, I decided this will work just as well. Go read it, you won’t regret it.