Holler If You Hear Me, by Gregory Michie is about the education of students and their teacher. A first person narrative, in the shoes of a teacher; Gregory Michie, going through his years of teaching and how he’s learned from his students and himself. Michie’s experiences of how he struggled; and his determination to succeed in educating children in low run schools gives us a feeling of hope and strength.
Reading his book you not only get to see the good side of teaching, but you also get to see the bad. You watch Michie unfold into this creative teacher striving to help his students. Each and every obstacle he went through truly made him stronger. He shows the readers and future teachers that you really need to work hard, and be passionate about teaching in order to succeed.
He is proof to students that there are teachers who truly care. Michie continuously went above and beyond what an average teacher would do for the success of his students. He found creative ways to bring learning into the lives of students who had just given up. He figured out a way to bring back the passion of knowledge to his students. Michie knew how to get the students involved, and he did.
I would recommend this book to future teachers. I felt that this book really inspired me to go above and beyond in teaching. I couldn’t put the book down once I started reading, and this has never happened to me before. Not only did this book inspire me to want to become an even better teacher, it instilled in me a love of reading that I had once lost. I’ve finally found something I’m interested in reading and I can’t wait to find more.
~Anita Pauly
Reading his book you not only get to see the good side of teaching, but you also get to see the bad. You watch Michie unfold into this creative teacher striving to help his students. Each and every obstacle he went through truly made him stronger. He shows the readers and future teachers that you really need to work hard, and be passionate about teaching in order to succeed.
He is proof to students that there are teachers who truly care. Michie continuously went above and beyond what an average teacher would do for the success of his students. He found creative ways to bring learning into the lives of students who had just given up. He figured out a way to bring back the passion of knowledge to his students. Michie knew how to get the students involved, and he did.
I would recommend this book to future teachers. I felt that this book really inspired me to go above and beyond in teaching. I couldn’t put the book down once I started reading, and this has never happened to me before. Not only did this book inspire me to want to become an even better teacher, it instilled in me a love of reading that I had once lost. I’ve finally found something I’m interested in reading and I can’t wait to find more.
~Anita Pauly
“Holler If You Hear Me” by Gregory Michie is an inspiring book, describing big issues involving teachers and students. Issues like segregation of school, racial bias, drugs, gangs, police brutality, sexism, sexual abuse. Gregory Michie is a type of a teacher that never gives up on his students. He struggles while “teaching” himself how to be a teacher. The book shows that being a teachers is not all nice and pretty all the time, it is also a difficult journey. He takes more steps and learns how to relate, understand his students, he builds relationships with kids he teaches.
The book is written in a narrative way, what makes us readers fall into sleepless hours of telling ourselves “ok, one more page and I‘ll go to sleep”, it not only inspires us future teachers to be exactly like Dr. Michie, to teach and to learn, to care and to change. He shows us all that there is hope for education, especially for children that are much less privileged than others, kids with behavioral problems. He is being creative in finding the path into his students minds, he truly shows that he believes that all students have the right to achieve their full potential. He wants his students to hit the goal of their academic achievements.
I will definitely recommend this book to all future teachers, so they can have great examples of how to reach to their students, and be great at their future jobs.
~Anna Kotlinska
The book Holler If You Hear Me, by Gregory Michie is one of those book that every inspiring, new teacher should read. Based from the South Side of Chicago, Michie personally introduces the reader to a variety of students from The Back of the Yards setting just South of downtown Chicago. In a city where segregation is as prominent today as it was thirty years ago, issues such as racial discrimination, low-income troubles, gang related violence, and other real life struggles are still, if not more-so, the leading worries of schools, neighborhoods and families in Chicago.
Michie takes his readers through a series of real life teacher-student moments that brings us along for a ride; we follow him through the mud when his teaching ideas fail, and we soar on his wings when he succeeds at inspiring his students beyond measure: the ultimate goal of an educator.
The reason Michie eventually succeeded in becoming the teacher he is today was because he did the actually learning. His education from his students allowed him to take that knowledge and tie together their culture, likes and passions to create effective lesson plans and homework assignments to hold better retention in the students. To a college student in Education Foundation classes, Holler If You Hear Me takes the preconceived notions of what teaching is going to be like and breaks them into a thousand pieces, only to be glued together by more realistic expectations of life opposite the students, which is perhaps the most effective method of preparing young educators today.
~Carrie Sill
Michie takes his readers through a series of real life teacher-student moments that brings us along for a ride; we follow him through the mud when his teaching ideas fail, and we soar on his wings when he succeeds at inspiring his students beyond measure: the ultimate goal of an educator.
The reason Michie eventually succeeded in becoming the teacher he is today was because he did the actually learning. His education from his students allowed him to take that knowledge and tie together their culture, likes and passions to create effective lesson plans and homework assignments to hold better retention in the students. To a college student in Education Foundation classes, Holler If You Hear Me takes the preconceived notions of what teaching is going to be like and breaks them into a thousand pieces, only to be glued together by more realistic expectations of life opposite the students, which is perhaps the most effective method of preparing young educators today.
~Carrie Sill
Holler If You Hear Me was a very interesting book and gave me a much better understanding of Chicago Public Schools and a better perspective of students from different cultural backgrounds. I learned a lot of good tips and strategies of teaching that Dr. Michie used in his teaching and described in his book. William Ayers and Therese Quinn, editors of this book, stated in the foreward, “The challenge of teaching for social justice is this: to find the capacity to oppose injustice and stand up on behalf of the disadvantaged in a time when power is so consolidated and unfairly weighted against them”. Dr. Michie did just that. He tried his very best to do whatever he could to help his students succeed, even though it was frustrating at times, but he never gave up on them. The students in this book were all from lower-income families and were surrounded by gang violence, discrimination, drugs, and not many people had much respect for them. Dr. Michie truly cared for these kids and with a lot of hard work he was able to assist them in their learning and help them embrace their cultures. Dr. Michie used real situations and turned them into projects that the students could relate to. Dr. Michie created “an open classroom where kids’ ideas were sought out and valued”.
Dr. Michie believed in his students and worked very hard to help them get the most out of their learning. One of his previous professors had encouraged him to put his students and their experiences at the center and listen to what they have to say and what relates to them. Learning is a lot more interesting when you can relate to it through your own experiences. Dr. Michie encourages teachers to speak with the students and not down at them, and to try to understand them. He used a new strategy called thematic teaching which is for the students to write about themes and ideas that are meaningful to them such as justice, gender roles, racism, media, defining moments, propaganda, freedom, stereotypes, and community. This was another way he was able to help his students relate to experiences and culture. Dr. Michie’s book was very interesting and I think all teachers should read it. It gives a very good view of what it is like to teach in an urban city school and how you can help your students achieve their goals even when it seems impossible.
~ Bessie Calabrese
Dr. Michie believed in his students and worked very hard to help them get the most out of their learning. One of his previous professors had encouraged him to put his students and their experiences at the center and listen to what they have to say and what relates to them. Learning is a lot more interesting when you can relate to it through your own experiences. Dr. Michie encourages teachers to speak with the students and not down at them, and to try to understand them. He used a new strategy called thematic teaching which is for the students to write about themes and ideas that are meaningful to them such as justice, gender roles, racism, media, defining moments, propaganda, freedom, stereotypes, and community. This was another way he was able to help his students relate to experiences and culture. Dr. Michie’s book was very interesting and I think all teachers should read it. It gives a very good view of what it is like to teach in an urban city school and how you can help your students achieve their goals even when it seems impossible.
~ Bessie Calabrese
If you are looking for a good read, then saddle up with Gregory Michie’s Holler If You Hear Me. It is an excellent read about a teacher in the Chicago Public School system that was able to inspire his students and help them with their educational endeavors. Michie was brilliant a modified curriculum with lessons he developed, getting his students actively engaged using not only their interest but also the subjects and issues that were directly related to their lives and heritage.
Michie was also able to illustrate how when a classroom is well run, the teacher not only educates his students but also learns from them at the very same time. Throughout the book Michie clearly defined different teaching cues and strategies, which I thought could be very useful in my future classroom, which allowed him to succeed with his students amidst the daily struggles in the school and the classroom. Holler If You Hear Me is an inspirational read giving current and future teachers a great hope for success with their students.
-Richard Reinhart
Michie was also able to illustrate how when a classroom is well run, the teacher not only educates his students but also learns from them at the very same time. Throughout the book Michie clearly defined different teaching cues and strategies, which I thought could be very useful in my future classroom, which allowed him to succeed with his students amidst the daily struggles in the school and the classroom. Holler If You Hear Me is an inspirational read giving current and future teachers a great hope for success with their students.
-Richard Reinhart
