The 89 Best Books For Each College Major, According to Students
(Too long, no time to read? Check out Ava DuVernay’s Oscar-nominated Netflix documentary 13th in which Alexander is interviewed!)
2. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder
This is a quick read but it may just be the most important book you read this year. With the rise of nationalism around the world and an increasingly fractured political sphere, Snyder’s book examines the darkest political and historical moments of the past century so that we will not be doomed to repeat the same mistakes.
Honorable Mentions:
- Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson
- The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein
- White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg
The Best Books, According to Education Majors:
1. For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood… and the Rest of Y’all Too: Reality Pedagogy and Urban Education by Christopher Emdin
For anyone with ambitions to go into education reform, this should be required reading. Emdin draws on his own experiences from his childhood to discuss today’s educational system and how to combat the disconnect between students and teachers that sets up so many for failure. This book is about how to reimagine the classroom as a place of equals in which students play just as large a role in teaching as they do learning.
2. The Bridge to Brilliance: How One Principal in a Tough Community Is Inspiring the World by Nadia Lopez with Rebecca Paley
This book may sound familiar to some and that is because the author is the Ms. Lopez from the Humans of New York post that went viral in 2015. That post led to several follow-ups as people around the world became invested in Ms. Lopez and the work she was doing for her students. This book, which details her pedagogy and approach to teaching students the rest of the society characterizes as unteachable, is dedicated to hundreds of other Ms. Lopezes around the country who are putting in the work to revolutionize our education system.
