Education - Social & Political Aspects, Education Biography, Fiction Subjects

In the Deep Heart's Core

Name: In the Deep Heart's Core
Author: Michael Johnston
ISBN: 9780802140241

by Michael Johnston

Available on Bookshop Write a review

Books.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.

Overview

"In the fall of 1997, Michael Johnston went to the rural Mississippi Delta - the "deep heart's core" of the South - as a member of the Teach For America program to become an English teacher in one of the poorest districts in the nation. At Greenville High School, he would confront a racially divided world in which his African-American students had to struggle daily against a legacy of crippling poverty and the scourges of drug addiction and gang violence that ravaged their community. In the Deep Heart's Core tells the story of how Johnston reached out to inspire his teenage students with all the means at his disposal - from the language of the great poets, to the strategies of chess, to the vigor of athletics." But more important, In the Deep Heart's Core brings to life the students of Greenville High, their passion for learning and dreams of a better world. Their stories, by turns heartbreaking and hopeful, harrowing and uplifting, form the emotional center of this powerful book. A charismatic class clown races to complete his coursework as his window of opportunity for earning a diploma is quickly shutting. A record-breaking track star draws the attention of college coaches from across the nation, but his poor grades threaten to push him from the bright spotlight of local celebrity to the obscure twilight of failure. A teenage mother's devotion to her infant son sparks a renewed commitment for academic success and an unyielding determination for a better future. And a vocational student emerges to find his voice as a writer, before having to face a choice that will change the course of his life forever.

Reviews

There are no reviews yet. Log in to write one.

Editorials

From Barnes & Noble

Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers
When Colorado native Michael Johnston signed up for a two-year stint with Teach for America, he hoped to make a difference in the lives of the poor children of the Mississippi Delta. What he hadn't planned on was the impact they would have on him; his experience makes for riveting reading.

Johnston, an Ivy Leagueeducated white man, squanders no opportunity to prove he is truly "one of the people," in the poverty-stricken, drug-addled community of Greenville. But has he really entered one of Dante's circles of Hell, or is redemption possible in this place? Greenville High School is a swirling vortex of chaos: canceled classes, racially divided students, gang-related violence, sexual promiscuity, and drugs are all on the program; scholarship and integrity lie on the periphery. But Johnston's story of a stranger in a strange land isn't even close to despairing; the full power of his tale lies in its inspiration -- it is a persuasive call to action by a talented and courageous man of words. (Fall 2002 Selection)

Publishers Weekly

Fresh from a postcollege, intensive five-week crash course, Johnston began his two-year stint with Teach for America, a program that addresses the needs of some of America's most desperate classrooms. In Johnston's case, it's a high school classroom in Greenville, Miss., with "chalkboards so scratched, rusted, and embedded with chalk dust that I couldn't read the boards even if I wrote on them with fresh white paint." There he teaches students who have been through "more funerals than honor roll assemblies" due to drugs and gang violence. The school system's countless institutional failures (among them, a counselor who sells high school credits) challenge Johnston's assurance that education was the "one valuable skill I could bring to Mississippi that she could use." The students' truancy, sexual promiscuity and aggression sorely test Johnston's conviction that "underneath, they were vulnerable... still children." Successes are minuscule and failure is rampant. What makes Johnston's account noteworthy is his ability to move beyond making generalizations about impoverished schools and students. Rather, he takes readers into the constricted and often doomed lives of individuals: Corelle catches up on months of work with a six-hour marathon, but drops out of school; "confident, gracious, and charismatic" Egina becomes the accidental victim of cross fire. Although Johnston occasionally catches sight of a "few students who were trying to work effectively," they occupy the periphery. "In making the Delta my home," he observes, "I found inside her a despair beyond any I could have imagined." That compassion, leavened with good sense, makes this honest and often painful account a moving, memorable call for action. Agent, Sterling Lord. (Sept.) Forecast: Johnston's first work should attract socially engaged college students and those who work with impoverished teens. An author tour to university towns such as Boston; Memphis; Oxford, Miss.; and New Haven, Conn., will heighten awareness. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

A participant in Teach for America, which places teachers in needy areas throughout the country, recounts the program's 12-year history and its accomplishments. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.