Rebecca Paley: The Bridge to Brilliance: How One Principle in a Tough Community is Inspiring the World
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Author: Rebecca Paley
Number of Pages: 288 pages
Published Date: 06 Oct 2016
Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc
Publication Country: New York, United States
Language: English
ISBN: 9781101980255
Download Link: Click Here
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The inspirational account of the creation of a pathbreaking inner-city middle school in Brooklyn, New York, by the magnetic young principal who rocketed to national fame via "Humans of New York"
When thirteen-year-old Vidal Chastanet told photographer Brandon Stanton that his principal, Ms. Lopez, was the person who most influenced his life, it was the pebble that started a whirlwind for Nadia Lopez and her small, new public school in one of Brooklyn s most wretched communities. The posting on Stanton s wildly popular site Humans of New York (HONY) went mega-viral. Lopez not long before on the verge of quitting found herself in the national spotlight and headed for a meeting with Obama, as well as the beneficiary of a million-dollar IndieGoGo campaign for the school. Here is her first-person account of what it took to get to that moment.
Mott Hall Bridges Academy isn t just a hallway inside a typically underserved public school in one of New York City s most underprivileged communities it is a school that glows with energy and excitement. Lopez tells the kids every day that they re extraordinary and that she loves them. When trouble stirs, she asks: Would I have been proud to see what happened in that classroom? No? Then why did it happen? She tells her teachers: Don t tell me our scholars can t learn; because if you can t teach them, then I ll come teach your class for a couple of weeks.
Everything was an uphill battle to get the school launched, to recruit faculty "and" students, to solve a million new problems every day, from violent crime to vanishing supplies, but Lopez illustrates how leadership often means just picking the right people to support you. In middle school, one year lost with an unengaged teacher is a year that can send a kid down a terrible path. And then, of course, there is the educational system itself, how teaching to the test is an enormous problem, particularly in schools with kids who are already disadvantaged and underprepared.
"The Bridge to Brilliance" is a book filled with common sense and caring that will carry her message to classrooms far from Brooklyn. As she says, modestly, There are hundreds of Ms. Lopezes around this country doing good work for kids. This honors all of them. "
