Vivian Gussin Paley

Vivian Gussin Paley is the author of this book. Mrs. Paley was a kindergarten teacher in the fifties and sixties, during the days of the civil rights struggle that defined the era. As a teacher and a Jewish woman, Mrs. Paley felt as though it were her duty to teach black children and to give them a start in their education with an open-minded, caring teacher. However, when Mrs. Paley found herself face to face with her first black student, she did not know how to treat the issue of race in the classroom. Mrs. Paley was advised by fellow teachers to ignore the issue of race and to concentrate on behavior alone. However, Mrs. Paley quickly came to believe that by ignoring the issue of race all together she was giving her white students the opportunity to believe stereotypes and misinformation that they got from...