Alexandra RobbinsRezensionen

This is an important book for anyone who has a stake in education, whether you work in it or are a parent who has a kid in it, this book details the struggles teachers and students face–the everyday struggles of simply learning material and gaining social emotional skills, and the struggles that simply shouldn’t be struggles, like lack of funding and unsupportive administration. However, Robbins doesn’t let the tough times overshadow the special moments that make teaching and education worth it. This book is a great balance of harsh reality and heartwarming inspiration.

Truly, this book has my heart. With my husband being a now-school librarian and a former English teacher, and having studied education, student taught, and tutored for quite some years myself, I see how teachers are consistently undermined and undervalued in their profession. This book speaks to those experiences but also shows just how dedicated most teachers are.

I love the combination of personal stories from Robbins’s correspondence to other teachers and data from studies and surveys. It provides a nice touch to show the human, emotional side of what the data represents. She goes through the school year, following three teachers in three different areas of the country. I fell in love with them and their stories. I cried when I read about the impossible situations they sometimes found themselves in.

Teaching is a tough job, made tougher by lack of administrative support and funding in many places. Robbins doesn’t shy away from the tough parts–where administration keeps painting over mold in a classroom, despite inherent health risks–where a special education teacher’s classes are overloaded with students, creating an unsafe environment. These are common situations many teachers find themselves in and often they don’t feel comfortable fighting against it because they don’t want to lose their jobs.

But Robbins also shows the rewarding part–the moment when you see a concept click with a kid–when a shy student feels safe and comfortable enough to come out of their shell–those wonderful times when a student calls you their favorite teacher and is so excited to see you and learn with you every day. It’s these moments that keep teachers going and that makes the profession so special. I love that she captured part of that.

I really loved this book for its honesty and its efforts to show a true glimpse of teaching. I think this is a great book to read for people who aren’t in the classroom every day to get a glimpse of just what is happening in education and be better informed as to what to advocate for when it comes to public education.

This book about the ways in which being over-driven, over-ambitious and over-scheduled is sucking the life out of teenagers may have been novel when it was published, but to my ear it has all been discussed to death already in many other fora. What set this book apart was the individual case studies that Robbins did of students at her Alma Mater, Walt Whitman. Although she refers to them as "Overachievers," it was honestly my opinion that with a couple of exceptions, they were pretty average students, with a small handful of extracurriculars and GPAs in the high 3's. Nonetheless, I found myself drawn to them and their stories.

The researched portions felt pretty redundant and Robbins didn't have much novel to add in them. Also, I found her breathless scare tactics a little dated, given that it's my experience that now that the overachievers are old enough to have kids of our own, it's a huge status symbol to underschedule your kids, put them in play-based preschools or opt out of preschool entirely and not pressure them. Who knows if that'll stick as our kids get older, but certainly the horrors of Baby Einstein and Baby Galileo are remnants of a past era.

I also found that there were some parts that stuck out -- that in the drive to make a point, Robbins just put in everything that sounded like it fit, whether or not it was a good idea. For instance, she complains about summer homework. Summer homework and summer curriculae are the best evidence-based interventions to bridge the gap between lower and upper class students that develops over summers. Similarly, she decries full-day kindergarten, which I see as a necessary invention in the women's liberation movement. I also wish she had talked more about the effects of burnout on long-term career success, which scored only a glancing mention at the end.

Still, I found it a kind of fun and easy to read what was essentially a rant about a topic on which I mostly share the same view.

There's a section in this book where nurses admit they find cops and firemen very attractive. They say the reason behind this is that They get us. They are right there in the trenches with us, and know what it feels like to not only save people, but to loose them as well." So why is that we teach our kids that cops and firemen are heroes, but nurses are caregivers? Yes, they are caregivers, but was this book demonstrates time and time again, nurses are the true heroes of our health care system; even more so than the doctors. It's about time we start spreading this around. Read this book and spread the word around.

This review originally appeared on my blog at www.gimmethatbook.com.

Thanks to Net Galley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Alexandra Robbins is familiar with bringing the reader into a closed society; she is the author of Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities. Her research is exhaustive, thorough and massive. For THE NURSES, she has interviewed hundreds of nursing professionals, active and retired, along with intensive reading of healthcare related books.

The plot is exactly as described–we are following the stories of four nurses as they navigate their way through their workdays at different hospitals. The workplaces are vastly different; one is in a low income area and very dangerous, another is in a better area but understaffed, yet another employs a staff that is closeminded and cliquey. Each chapter covers a different subject, such as interpersonal difficulties, healthcare in general, the physical danger to nurses, availability of loose drugs and therefore the potential to become hooked, and the doctor’s and healthcare industry’s attitude towards nurses in general.

As I read, I simply could not believe what I was seeing. My perception of nursing changed 180 degrees as I made my way through the book. Discard your vision of a glamorous, overpaid, angel in white. Be prepared to hear about nurses getting fired for following doctor’s orders, drunk patients wreaking havoc and causing serious permanent injury, staff surfing the Internet and being “too busy” to give aid to their coworkers, and the overwhelming, constant burden of having too many patients under your care.

The more I read, the less I want to be anywhere near a hospital.

Gore and lengthy descriptions of medical procedures are not a part of this book. Rather, there are recountings of conversations, incidents, and situations that these nurses found themselves dealing with on a daily basis. The book is detailed and can be a bit long winded, just a bit, especially with some of the statistics that seem to go on for a while, but they are relevant and serve to educate the reader.

I’m interested to see what the nursing community has to say about this book–will there be an outpouring of agreement, or is Robbins sensationalizing the truth? Either way, THE NURSES is well written and thrusts you into a world most of us don’t normally see. Most of us probably aren’t even aware that this shady underbelly of medicine exists. Kudos to Robbins for bringing it to the forefront.

This might hit a little too close to home and/or be slightly painful/triggering for educators to read. But what a good and necessary book. I found myself getting nervous when the author kind of glorified the extremes that teachers go to, and was glad when she pointed out how absurd it is that we expect educators to do those things for students. The only thing I would have liked was mayyyybe a slight pushback against the expectation to work after hours, always be answering phone calls, texts, and e-mails, etc.½

I did something I hardly ever do: I bailed on this book. And I think I gave it a chance. I read just over 200 pages, but some of the anecdotes the author recounted were just too painful for this 40-year veteran teacher to take. I don’t doubt that what she is reporting actually happened. I saw it, but mainly in elementary schools. I taught high school where maybe people are too busy to participate in all the corner of the hallway gossip and faculty bullying. One of the teacher characters in this book seemed to be like the character Eeyore with gloom and doom following her around wherever she went. Not everything in my career was perfect. I mean, after all, I taught for four decades. But combing my entire career it wouldn’t add up to the drama in this school during one year. I think I’ll go back to watching “Abbot Elementary.” I know it’s pollyanish, but I’d rather see that side of teaching than the one portrayed in this book.

A real "pull back the curtains" look into the teaching profession today. Coming out of the Covid crisis, and all of it's ramifications for children's education, it's important to understand what teachers are going through. The author does a good job of illustrating this, by taking a good look at several different teachers. After reading this, my heart goes out to all of those involved in the education process today. I really don't know what the answer is, but I hope someone can figure something out quickly. I would have rated this book higher, but it really did depress me.

Non-fiction recounting the author’s analysis of a plethora of reference materials, along with results of interviews of both students and experts, showing the long-term value of non-conformity. The author has coined the term “quirk theory” to describe the results of her analysis.
In the author’s words: “Quirk Theory: Many of the differences that cause a student to be excluded in school are the same traits or real-world skills that others will value, love, respect, or find compelling about that person in adulthood and outside of the school setting...Quirk theory is intended to validate students’ inability or refusal to follow the crowd. It serves as a way to explain that, once they leave the school setting, their lives can improve.”

Robbins explains the science behind meanness, exclusion, social labeling, and group dynamics. She observes that high school groups tend to value popularity and conformity, while ignoring, excluding, or even bullying those viewed as “different.” She offers hope to the non-popular individuals that their lives will improve once they move on to college or work environments. She focuses on seven individuals who identify as nerd, band geek, new girl, gamer, weird girl, loner, and popular. She documents the pressures to conform and the inner struggles of those viewed as “inferior.” The author issues a challenge to the seven individuals and discusses their progress with them many times over the course of a school year.

The book reads like a series of anecdotes (from the seven individuals) interspersed with a summary of research. I think has merit in helping understand the issues related to group intolerance. It could give hope to those feeling marginalized. Robbins offers suggestions on how to overcome (or at least better ignore) the ostracism they are currently experiencing. She also offers ideas for how parents and schools can help nurture the self-esteem of students with atypical interests, unique style, or extraordinary skills. The same individuals who are tormented in high school can become some of our most prominent thinkers, artists, entrepreneurs, and innovators. It encourages acceptance of others, which I think is an admirable goal. I found it informative and thought-provoking .

Recommended to those interested in the psychology of groups, students feeling like they don’t quite “fit in,” and the educators and parents of such students. Contains profanity, homophobia, and references to underage drinking, sex, and drug usage.

I'm still not quite sure about this new cultural thing people like to term the "quarterlife crisis"-- I mean, really? "Crisis"? How about just an abundance of choices, freedoms, opportunities that come with living as a privileged young adult in a "developed" part of the world in the 21st century? I get that this can cause lots of stress and anxiety and self-doubt but I figured those things are a normal part of life. (I'm thinking it's probably also something partly created by the self-help/pop psychology industry, as succinctly stated on the back cover: "The next big thing in the world of pop psychology is the quarterlife crisis.")

I ended up half-reading and half-skimming, mostly because I feel that I've already passed and resolved my "crisis", despite just barely being in my twenties. If I had gotten this book a couple years ago, it would have been more useful for me. Still, this book does give a lot of practical advice for those twentysomethings who are not sure or are struggling with what they're doing with their lives. A lot of the advice is really just common sense, but I think people who are struggling with the types of issues addressed could definitely use the reassurance and a push in the right direction which the book provides.

Some good passages, best for parents of middle schoolers and high school freshmen.

When I read it more than 10 years ago I liked it. Now I'm not sure what "geek" really means.

I really wanted to like this book. Eventually, the format of following seven individual quirky students got confusing. Had trouble keeping track of who was who and what each of them were trying to achieve.

Confession: the only reason I read this book is because I really like Robbins' writing. But finishing this was more of an endurance contest than anything else. That's not Robbins' fault at all--I just have such little tolerance for the shenanigans of the mean girl culture.

SPOILERS: I was actually a little disappointed in the lack of development of the girls she followed, as well. I kept hoping one of them would realize that the sororities were completely altering their world views, but that never seemed to happen.

But if you were never in a sorority and want to see into their world, this would be a decent place to go...and might even make you grateful you avoided that mess.

As with "The Overachievers," this book should be required reading for all teachers. I wish I could ask for an all-staff book club situation, but unfortunately, I don't quite trust that every one would read it...and to understand how that statement is relevant, pick up the book and read the section about how schools and teachers often contribute to the clique culture...it will make sense.

At times this was hard to read, as it forced me to examine my own behaviors both as "the adult in the room" and as a colleague. I hope I haven't blatantly contributed to the clique hierarchy in my school, though after reading this book, I'm sure I have. Now that I am more aware of how teachers reinforce conformity, I'm determined to be better for those students who might be, as Robbins puts it, "on the cafeteria fringe."

Yes, non-fiction takes longer to read, but Robbins' writing style is so accessible that I didn't want to put it down. I wanted to know how the kids she focused on changed, and I wanted clues for how I could help similar students in my school.

As I read, I thought about some of my students from this last year, and how they might enjoy reading this book as well.

A must-read for any parent or teacher of teenagers, especially those parents who either knowingly or unwittingly pressure their child to be hyper-successful.

The author managed to get herself inside several sororities undercover, which was promising, but her decision not to name any of the real universities, sororities, or people she talked to (to preserve her sources' anonymity and thereby protect them from the fury of their scandalized sisters) and aimless crosscutting between stories dried up my interest pretty fast.

It was hard for me to rate this one—my feelings about it are very mixed. For reference, I'm a former med/surg nurse who practiced mostly in the 2000s.

Overall I think it's an interesting and informative(*) book, and the writer's heart is definitely in the right place; Robbins clearly loves nurses and wants to raise public awareness of their work and the pressures they're under, and takes a strong stand for better working conditions and labor solidarity, while also acknowledging the many ways nurses can sabotage themselves. A particularly nice touch is near the end, where she gives patients and their family members some pretty reasonable tips on how to simultaneously advocate for their own care and make nurses' lives easier.

It was really hard for me to get past how it's written, though. Half of it is straight nonfiction presentations of facts and statistics—clear, but not particularly well organized and full of repetition. The other half is narrative dramatizations of four pseudonymous real people (or composite characters?) as they face various job challenges, and even though the individual scenes are interesting enough and the background information is explained without any terrible mistakes, the style is very clunky and flat. I realize that this is meant to be more of an educational presentation than a work of literature—and this kind of thing is in the eye of the beholder, so it may read perfectly well to other people—but to me it's just very careless writing with no rhythm, no nuance, no difference in tone between different narrators, and every point hammered into the ground. It's also weirdly melodramatic and cliché-ridden, considering how much Robbins (in the non-narrative sections) talks about wanting to debunk misconceptions and stereotypes: there's a long discussion of why the "sexy nurse" image is so pernicious, but then a young nurse is introduced with a scene where she checks out her own "ample bosom"; whenever the main characters are given an ongoing subplot involving anything in their personal life, it's from a checklist of predictable big-ticket items (finding romance, staying sober, trying to have a child); there's some good discussion of the many pressures that contribute to mismanagement and bad working conditions, but in the narrative the bad managers just happen to be amazingly bad people in every way; and there's some abstract acknowledgment of how easy it is for anyone to make mistakes, but apart from a drug addiction story that happens in flashback, the main characters basically never do anything wrong. Even if it's entirely based on real people's experiences, if you choose to present this stuff in the style of a fictional narrative, I think it's worth using more fictional craft than this.

There's also an oddly limited perspective here: the book presents itself as a comprehensive cross-section of the profession (and literally tells readers that they'll never see health care the same way again after this!), and also talks about how TV and movies don't give you the real story... but then looks exclusively at ER nursing, just like every TV show. There is literally one mention of acute-care floor nursing, and it's only as an unreasonable obstacle to the ER nurses who are mad at the floor nurses for not wanting to take patient transfers during shift change (Robbins does mention later that maybe the floor nurses kind of have a point there, but it's an afterthought)—and she really doesn't seem to have spent any time in any other part of the hospital, let alone in any non-hospital health care settings. That's a big missed opportunity; most nurses will go through very different kinds of jobs in a career, not just the same position at different hospitals.

A minor pet peeve that I only bother mentioning because it would've been so easy to not do this: "murse" as slang for "male nurse" is a jokey term that some people are fine with and others dislike, so it really isn't a great idea to refer to every single male nurse in the book exclusively as a "murse" even when the word "nurse" would've worked just as well. I presume Robbins would prefer not to be constantly called an "authoress." (Sort of related: she mentions that "murses" shouldn't be stereotyped as effeminate—and then massively overcompensates by making every one of them a big burly boy with bulging biceps.)

I know I've made this sound terrible, but again, I do respect the research(*) that went into it, and Robbins' advocacy for nurses (and the way she addresses specific institutional issues like over-reliance on patient satisfaction surveys). She really does capture the essence of a lot of interactions and work dynamics that I recognize from experience... even if the way that essence is presented in prose is pretty unsatisfying to me as a reader.

(* I should mention that not everything in the book is equally well researched— basically, whenever Robbins cites one of her nurse characters as an authority on something that isn't directly part of the job, I would take it with a big grain of salt. The biggest WTF moment in that regard was, as another reviewer mentioned, the casual assertion [as a fact, not as the character's opinion] that teenagers are constantly making up rape stories. This is a relatively tiny part of the book, but good grief.)

Interesting.

A history of one of the most infamous secret societies in the world; Yale University's Skull and Bones. While there has been a lot said about Skull and Bones; they secretly rule the world, probably are part of a worldwide conspiracy to tune pianos wrong, etc, I think it's probably more of a drinking club at one of the most prestigious universities in the world, so that many of its members have gone on to have lots of power and money.

Probably the most interesting part for me was that this men's only organisation first considered inviting women into their inner sanctum back in the late 1960s but was kyboshed by former members who apparently couldn't stand the thought of women defiling the Skull and Bones building and learning the (presumably rather lame) secrets.

Robbins tracks two young men closely—one a freshman pledge, another a sophomore who becomes the president of his chapter at a different fraternity—to argue that (historically white) fraternities can provide vital support to teenage boys struggling to become men far from home. But that support can push them to become better or worse men, and much as she seems sympathetic to “Jake,” it’s clear that his increased tolerance for hazing and alcohol abuse and his increased willingness to treat women as objects are problems. “Oliver,” meanwhile, grows as a leader and a person as he learns to handle conflicts among his brothers and to control the alcohol-filled parties that are also a part of his fraternity’s life (even as they are much safer for women than some other frat parties). Alcohol and searching for a model of manhood are the two big themes here; performative masculinity leads some frats, like Jake’s, to prioritize appearance and status, which is manifested by drinking and fucking the most attractive sorority girls. Others, Robbins argues, resist those pressures (and usually have lower status on campus) and prioritize service and supporting other brothers. Either way, young men are looking for connection and for opportunities to have close relationships with other men. Robbins suggests that we try to encourage them to do that Oliver’s way.

A nonfiction expose of sorority life at an unnamed college, primarily through the experiences of four girls over one school year (first edition published in 2005). The author also conducted supplementary research (26 pages of endnotes!), attended sorority-related meetings, and interviewed past and present sorority members. All I can say after reading this book is that I am *so* glad that the large university in Texas that I attended did not have sororities and fraternities while I was there.½

I really enjoyed this book. I would be interested to hear how the teens fared as adults.

I haven't been doing this very long, realistically. But some of this is spot on. Some of it is sensationalized, and I found myself annoyed by this. Nursing, especially in the ER, is exciting enough without inflating what goes on. Still worth a read if you are a nurse or thinking of becoming one. It does give the non nurse a glimpse into the profession and maybe some perspective on their treatment.

So this was a really interesting book. I love reading and hearing about other peoples jobs. I think it's fascinating that so many people in this world do so many varied things and it all fits into part of a whole. Nursing is one of those professions I never even considered when going to college, so getting this detailed overview from the perspectives of actual professionals in the field was fun. The one caveat I will add is this focuses the personal anecdotes towards trauma units, although much of the data represented accounts for the more general field of nursing. Just something to keep in mind.

I feel like everything that could possibly be covered was discussed here. There was a chapter on Nurse-On-Nurse bullying (aka, eating their young), as well as one on the sometimes tense relationships between nurses and doctors. There's a chapter on the burnout factor for the profession, especially those who work in the ER. One chapter focuses on why nurses chose their field and why they stay in it. There's even a chapter about chemical substance abuse and how prevalent yet not talked about it is.

Overall, as a layperson, I have to say that this book fulfilled everything I wanted it to be and more. I have had several of this authors books on my shelf for years and now I just want to start them right away considering how well written and thought out this piece was. I would highly suggest this if you are interested in the nursing field as either a potential career, or if, like me, you are just interested in what it's like in the day-to-day trenches.

Copy courtesy of Workman Publishing Company, via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

In this text, Alexandra Robbins writes narratives of American teenagers who are overachievers and its negative effect on American society. For three semesters in the mid-1990s, Robbins follows eight students at Walt Whitman High School through their daily activities. Robbins also discusses the issues that may arise in overachievers such as stress, depression, lying, and even suicide. I often use this text at the mid-year mark for my juniors because they are all thinking about college applications. The novel leads to wonderful debate and discussions about how to "stand out" in the college admission process.
In this unit, I have students write personal narratives, log their activities for a two week period, and finally create a PSA regarding overachieving.

View Film - No Where to Race Trailer: http://www.racetonowhere.com/about-film
Resources:
Talking with Teens https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKgCJVVZftw
Over Scheduled Children https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdTKly2m6BM
The Washington Post "Too Few Overachievers" http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/20/AR2006082000528....