The Essential Conversation: What Parents and Teachers Can Learn from Each Other - Rilegato

“Here is a book that will help us all understand what happens when children leave home in order to learn at school: One world meets another, and as a consequence the young witness their elders in an instructive encounter of great significance—all of which is told forthrightly and thoughtfully in an enormously important volume (one soon to be a classic in the literature of education) that will be of continuing value to its readers.”
—Robert Coles, author of Children of Crisis and Lives of Moral Leadership

“To the parents: This treasure of a book is full of wisdom and insight. You should put it on your nightstand and read a little each night before you go to sleep, because in another part of your home is a child who is your heart, your dreams, and your positive future. Parents and teachers need to work in unison for the benefit of our children and our world. In The Essential Conversation, Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot gives us the vision and shows us the way.”
—Bill Cosby, author of Fatherhood

“Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot has demonstrated again her instinct for the telling specificity that offers not only insight into matters of broad social concern but also reason for hope. In precise and luminous prose she connects our deepest passions and painful memories to the conversations that will determine our children’s futures.”
—Mary Catherine Bateson, author of Composing a Life

Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, a sociologist, is a professor of education at Harvard University, where, since 1972, she has studied the culture of schools, families, and communities. She is the author of eight books, including The Good High School, Respect, I’ve Known Rivers, and Balm in Gilead, which won the 1988 Christopher Award for “literary merit and humanitarian achievement.” In 1984, she was the recipient of the prestigious MacArthur Prize Fellowship. In 1993, she was awarded Harvard’s George Ledlie Prize for research that makes the “most valuable contribution to science” and is to “the benefit of mankind.” She is the first African-American woman in Harvard’s history to have an endowed professorship named in her honor.