Reflections of a Hispanic Teacher.

Reflections of a Hispanic Teacher: Resistance to class and racial oppression in the classroom. José-Enrique Figueroa. ISBN: 978-1-888205-56-5. This book offers a much-needed progressive-critical perspective of American education based on the experiences of a Hispanic teacher dealing with real issues in the classroom. Reflecting on twenty-one years of teaching in the trenches of the South Bronx and in the City of Yonkers, his background and upbringing as a Puerto Rican immigrant, and his family's struggle to ensure he was well educated, he now sees a failed education system laying blame in all the wrong places. Intertwining real world teaching experience with pedagogic theories, vivid childhood stories of his grandfather, real life trials and tribulations of students in the classroom, and the values and dreams Hispanic writers pour into their poetry and prose, the author shows the complexity of the social order, its influence on education, and the reasons for perceived educational failures. He propounds that prevailing reform theories, such as inclusion, fail to recognize education in the context of the social order. Children need to be taught individually; their intellectual, emotional, and behavioral needs cannot fit into a one-size-fits-all model.