Chasing Hellhounds

Author's Bio:

Marvin Hoffman was born in Brooklyn and studied at the City College of New York. Since receiving a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Harvard University, he has taught at every level from preschool to graduate school. He has been director of Teachers and Writers Collaborative in New York; associate director of the Child Development Group of Mississippi, one of the nation’s first Head Start programs; director of graduate teacher education at Antioch/New England; and teaching principal in Bennington, New Hampshire. For the last fourteen years he has taught in Houston where he is on the faculties of Jones High School and Rice University. Currently, he is on leave at the University of Chicago’s Center for School Improvement. He is married to the novelist Rosellen Brown.

Quotes:

“This is one of the wisest and most compelling books on learning and teaching that I have had the privilege to read in years.” —Herbert Kohl, author of I Won't Learn From You!

“A teacher's 'Pilgrim's Progress' —a wonderfully honest, searching, compelling narrative that offers a mix of personal reflection and stories that tell of particular students and that convey instructively, vivid classroom scenes in all their complexity. Here is a book that can become an intellectual, moral, and psychological companion for thousands of teachers who hunger for the kind of thoughtfulness and candor, largeness of heart that comes across in these pages which, in their sum, are a great gift, indeed, to all of us who are parents, teachers” —Robert Coles, author of The Moral Life of Children

“Everybody in America who cares about our schools should read Marvin Hoffman's Chasing Hellhounds.... Hoffman's students —their life stories and stunning writing —are at the heart of this book. Its soul . . . comes through in the elegant prose, marvelous wit, and obvious commitment to rigorous education.... New teachers and veterans alike will find much to love and ponder in this book.” —Nancy Larson Shapiro, Director of the Teachers & Writers Collaborative

“How to briefly sum up such a rich book? . . . a keen and deft portrait of Hoffman's students at Jones High. . . Hoffman has no use for moral cant, so he is a good guide through the moral battlefield of public life called education.” —The Bloomsbury Review

“A fascinating account. . . Marvin Hoffman's book is a gift.” —Texas Observer