Our Children Are Dying

by Nat Hentoff

Book by Hentoff, Nat

Genres: Nonfiction, History

Paperback

First published October 21, 1966

About the author

Nathan Irving "Nat" Hentoff was a historian, novelist, music critic, and syndicated columnist. As a civil libertarian and free-speech activist, he has been described by the Cato Institute—where he has been a senior fellow since 2009—as "one of the foremost authorities on the First Amendment" to the U.S. Constitution. He was a staff writer for The New Yorker for over 25 years, and was formerly a columnist for The Village Voice for over 50 years, in addition to Legal Times, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, and The Progressive, among others. Since 2014, he has been a regular contributor to the conservative Christian website WorldNetDaily, often in collaboration with his son Nick Hentoff.

Hentoff was a Fulbright Fellow at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1950 and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in education in 1972. The American Bar Association bestowed the Silver Gavel Award in 1980 for his columns on law and criminal justice, and five years later his undergraduate alma mater, Northeastern University, awarded him an honorary Doctorate of Law degree. While working at the Village Voice in 1995, the National Press Foundation granted him the W.M. Kiplinger Distinguished Contributions to Journalism Award. He was a 1999 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Commentary, "for his passionate columns championing free expression and individual rights," which was won by Maureen Dowd. In 2004 he became the first non-musician to be named an NEA Jazz Master by the U.S. National Endowment for the Arts.

Hentoff lectured at many colleges, universities, law schools, elementary, middle and high schools, and has taught courses in journalism and the U.S. Constitution at Princeton University and New York University. He serves on the Board of Advisors of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (F.I.R.E.) and is on the steering committee of the Reporters' Committee for the Freedom of the Press.

Reviews

[Charlie Bone]

http://www.gestalt.org/shapiro.htm

[Khepre · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent survey study of the American Education system and the problems can still be seen today.

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am SHOCKED that the cutting edge of education in 1966 is almost exactly the same as the cutting edge of education now (social justice, cultural proficiency, using technology, finding real reasons to read and write, hating on standardized tests, community involvement, helping build intrinsic motivation and emphasis on nurturing other "soft" skills like perseverance, small group instruction). I've read NEW books about the same topics and ideas this book was promoting. Of course, some of it is incredibly outdated, but mostly in terminology rather than ideas (I wouldn't call my low-income students "slum children" for one). I love some of the bizarre psych ideas here, too, like the gray-haired principal boxing a student in his office to show the student that the principal is strong enough to protect him. Amazing!! Yeah, I'm not going to box any students or "take them to my breast" like a substitute mother, but this book is incredibly inspiring despite its slight weirdness.