Review of Doug Selwyn (2019). All children are our children
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Review of Doug Selwyn (2019). All children are our children New York: Peter Lang. 202 pp. ISBN 9781433161643 (Paperback) Caroline Green Whitcomb 1 # Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Keywords Education . United States ofAmerica . Health . Inequality . Covid-19 . Solidarity
An Incredulous Crisis The United States of America is in crisis. The pandemic continues to rage across the nation. Ongoing police violence, racism, psychotic statements by the president, and contradictory news sources have polarized the nation. Many Americans are, for the first time, coming to grips with the fact that we are not a great nation. I was born in the late 1970s to a family that prided itself on generational military service. I grew up believing this country is a Christian nation. A nation determined to protect the abused and exploited of the world. I recall the welcome home reception for my father after his tour in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War. Surrounded by friends and family decked out in red, white, and blue, I remember holding back tears as the song, ‘God Bless the U.S.A.’ (Greenwood 1984) played through the speakers. It was not until I began my doctoral journey at the age of 39 that my beliefs about America began to change. As I read and listened to the voices of the nation’s marginalized, my deep-seated patriotism began to wane and questions replaced once intrinsic beliefs. Doug Selwyn experienced a similar awakening. Selwyn, a veteran of the public school system and a professor of education, had in his own words, ‘a front-row seat to the train wreck’ of American education (Selwyn 2019: 6). Written pre-pandemic in 2019, Selwyn recognized the disparity between what Americans want to believe and what was actually occurring at the local, state, and national levels. The disaster of education in the USA has been the subject of countless articles and books; however, Selwyn’s (2019) All Children Are Our Children offers a fresh perspective. He guides his readers towards an honest understanding of the state of the nation by situating the
* Caroline Green Whitcomb [email protected]
1
Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA, USA
Postdigital Science and Education
[o]ngoing health crisis and the role that education plays within the larger picture of inequality, of the complex interplay of systems based on class, privilege, racism, sexism and on maintaining a status quo that serves those in power. (Selwyn 2019: 17) In addition, Selwyn provides clear steps towards bringing safety, well-being, and health to our children. Amidst today’s cries for change and the pandemicforced rethinking of education, Selwyn’s articulation of the intentional weaving of societal evils for the ill of our children and his vision for a more just and equitable future make this work a necessary read. For Selwyn, an understanding of US population health is necessary for understanding the failed educational system. Selwyn (2019: 17) quotes Jean Anyon: ‘[t]rying to fix an urban school without fixing the neighborhood in which it is embedded is l
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