Fearless Teaching: Collected Stories

In his second book, educator Grauer (Real Teachers) takes readers to Jerusalem, Cuba, Tanzania, Bali, and a Navajo school in New Mexico, drawing on stories of freedom, play, and happiness to inspire teachers and other stakeholders in the American education system. Grauer begins each chapter with a question, proceeds to explore that question with a story about a school or an educational experience, and concludes, usually, with an observation or two about how the story could apply to American education. The storytelling framework and cross-cultural analysis make for vivid and, at times, poetic reading (“There’s a sense of floating in the snow, the shushing sound, the rhythmic breathing,” Grauer writes of hiking in the Alps with an experienced teacher), but Grauer’s frequent use of the pronoun “we” is jarring. The “we,” which variously addresses teachers, the American public, and Grauer’s former students, is especially confusing when the writing veers from global advice to educator-specific suggestions to highly personal anecdotes (e.g., a memory from his niece’s graduation, a tribute to folk singer Pete Seeger). Though the book could be more unified and coherent, it does encourage thoughtful engagement from readers, especially through the seminar questions found at the end of the book. [em](BookLife) [/em]