All Souls: A Family Story from Southie Site
Citation
MacDonald, M. All Souls: A Family Story from Southie. New York, NY: Ballantine Books, 1999.
Abstract
Michael Patrick MacDonald tells us the true story of his family living in a poor, white community in Boston known as Southie. Most times when we think of "ghettos" with extremely poor families and homeless and huge crime rates we think of Black communities, but here is a first hand account of a poor white family of Irish descent. His mother had eleven children from four different men and despite losing four of her children to drugs, murder, suicide and death and still managed to fight for her children and give the living children the chance to escape the community and make something out of their lives. Southie refuses to accept that they are full of gang violence and crime due to the leadership of Whitey Bulger, ultimately leaving the community unable to change and develop because it won't face its problems. This story is about hope and redemption in the most impoverished white community in the country and one man's struggle to ensure that children growing up where he did do not have to go through the same pains and struggle that he did. The book can assist us in understanding student diversity and getting ideas for making multicultural education apply to white students as well.
Philosophy
One idea I got from this book was that even "white" students are different from each other too and have customs and opinions that teachers should make sure to consider; usually we think about different students as being White vs. Black vs. Asian vs. Hispanic but this is an understatement because White could be American or British or German, Black could be American or Nigerian or Jamaician, Asian could be Japanese or Chinese or Indian, Hispanic could be Mexican or Puerto Rican or Brazilian. Additionally, as I was reading this story I noticed a lot of educational history as well: most importantly the Boston bus riots and desegregation of schools. Multicultural education is a Big Idea in schools in that we have to remember all of our students are different and not step on their beliefs and customs while teaching to them. Michael's family was Irish Roman Catholic, reminding me that religion although supposed to be separate from school is always right under the skin and personality of the student so we need to care for our students and figure out what their religion might mean to their learning. This is not to say that we should ask students what their religion is, but if I have a student in my class who shares their religion with us then I need to make sure that I don't step on his or her beliefs and could even use them to get him more motivated by connecting his beliefs to the information.
Citation
MacDonald, M. All Souls: A Family Story from Southie. New York, NY: Ballantine Books, 1999.
Abstract
Michael Patrick MacDonald tells us the true story of his family living in a poor, white community in Boston known as Southie. Most times when we think of "ghettos" with extremely poor families and homeless and huge crime rates we think of Black communities, but here is a first hand account of a poor white family of Irish descent. His mother had eleven children from four different men and despite losing four of her children to drugs, murder, suicide and death and still managed to fight for her children and give the living children the chance to escape the community and make something out of their lives. Southie refuses to accept that they are full of gang violence and crime due to the leadership of Whitey Bulger, ultimately leaving the community unable to change and develop because it won't face its problems. This story is about hope and redemption in the most impoverished white community in the country and one man's struggle to ensure that children growing up where he did do not have to go through the same pains and struggle that he did. The book can assist us in understanding student diversity and getting ideas for making multicultural education apply to white students as well.
Philosophy
One idea I got from this book was that even "white" students are different from each other too and have customs and opinions that teachers should make sure to consider; usually we think about different students as being White vs. Black vs. Asian vs. Hispanic but this is an understatement because White could be American or British or German, Black could be American or Nigerian or Jamaician, Asian could be Japanese or Chinese or Indian, Hispanic could be Mexican or Puerto Rican or Brazilian. Additionally, as I was reading this story I noticed a lot of educational history as well: most importantly the Boston bus riots and desegregation of schools. Multicultural education is a Big Idea in schools in that we have to remember all of our students are different and not step on their beliefs and customs while teaching to them. Michael's family was Irish Roman Catholic, reminding me that religion although supposed to be separate from school is always right under the skin and personality of the student so we need to care for our students and figure out what their religion might mean to their learning. This is not to say that we should ask students what their religion is, but if I have a student in my class who shares their religion with us then I need to make sure that I don't step on his or her beliefs and could even use them to get him more motivated by connecting his beliefs to the information.
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