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A review by book_concierge
Adequate Yearly Progress by Roxanna Elden
3.0
Audiobook narrated by Roxana Ortega.
From the book jacket:Each year brings familiar educational challenges to Brae Hill Valley, a struggling urban high school in Texas. But the school’s teachers face plenty of challenges of their own. … And this year, a new celebrity superintendent is determined to leave his own mark on the school – even if that means shutting the whole place down. The fallout will shake up the teachers’ lives both inside and outside the classroom.
My reactions
I’m not a teacher, but I have friends who have worked as teachers, and I’ve volunteered as a reading tutor for a couple of years. And I felt that the depictions – while somewhat stereotypical – seemed accurate to me. From the teacher-training conference (how many times must we hear the “starfish”story?!) to lunchroom monitoring to science fair disasters to parent interactions and finally to efforts to quantify success, all the elements seemed familiar and relatable.
I really liked science teacher Hernan Hernandez, who pines for English teacher Lena Wright. Meanwhile Lena is focused on fellow spoken-word artist, Nex Level. And idealistic history teacher Kaytee Mahoney struggles to connect to her students while secretly writing a tell-all blog and bowing to her parents’ wishes by applying to law school. And Coach Ray, who is always ready to lend a hand (or the hands of his football players when some heavy lifting is involved), is struggling to connect with his two daughters, by two different women, and NOT repeat the mistakes of his father.
Elden includes scenarios that are familiar to anyone who has ever been required to attend yet another motivational speech or meeting to discuss implementation of a new process. There are moments of serious reflection, scenes of tenderness and of hilarity.
Roxana Ortega does a fine job narrating the audio version. She had a lot of different characters to handle but she was up for the challenge.
From the book jacket:Each year brings familiar educational challenges to Brae Hill Valley, a struggling urban high school in Texas. But the school’s teachers face plenty of challenges of their own. … And this year, a new celebrity superintendent is determined to leave his own mark on the school – even if that means shutting the whole place down. The fallout will shake up the teachers’ lives both inside and outside the classroom.
My reactions
I’m not a teacher, but I have friends who have worked as teachers, and I’ve volunteered as a reading tutor for a couple of years. And I felt that the depictions – while somewhat stereotypical – seemed accurate to me. From the teacher-training conference (how many times must we hear the “starfish”story?!) to lunchroom monitoring to science fair disasters to parent interactions and finally to efforts to quantify success, all the elements seemed familiar and relatable.
I really liked science teacher Hernan Hernandez, who pines for English teacher Lena Wright. Meanwhile Lena is focused on fellow spoken-word artist, Nex Level. And idealistic history teacher Kaytee Mahoney struggles to connect to her students while secretly writing a tell-all blog and bowing to her parents’ wishes by applying to law school. And Coach Ray, who is always ready to lend a hand (or the hands of his football players when some heavy lifting is involved), is struggling to connect with his two daughters, by two different women, and NOT repeat the mistakes of his father.
Elden includes scenarios that are familiar to anyone who has ever been required to attend yet another motivational speech or meeting to discuss implementation of a new process. There are moments of serious reflection, scenes of tenderness and of hilarity.
Roxana Ortega does a fine job narrating the audio version. She had a lot of different characters to handle but she was up for the challenge.