ABOUT

Connie Steinman

ABOUT THE BOOK

Behind the Wall

Behind the Wall follows a diversely populated suburban city high school with underprivileged students who learn life skills, coping skills, and self-reliance through the lessons of Emerson, taught by a teacher who encourages them to look within to persevere and to beat the odds. Connie Steinman connects and inspires James and his friends who are credit deficient to graduate! This is a book about teaching, learning, and self-reliance. It contains a lesson for all of us.

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Rancho Cordova, CA Author Publishes Biography

A Caring Teacher Inspires These Students to Overcome Difficult Situations Out of Their Control

Behind the Wall, a new book by Connie Steinman, has been released by Dorrance Publishing Co., Inc.

“Looking for ways to integrate critical social-emotional skills like self-reliance into your English curriculum? Worried about the choices your students are making? You have come to the right place. In an unputdownable teaching memoir, Connie Steinman weaves lessons from Ralph Waldo Emerson into the fabric of her classroom. As her students grapple with Emerson’s language and recast his ideas in their own words, they discover ways of rethinking their attitudes towards conformity, dependence, and virtue. Prepare to be inspired.”

– Carol Jago is a long-time high school English teacher and past president of the National Council of Teachers of English. She is the author of The Book in Question: Why and How Reading Is in Crisis (Heinemann).

“This is a book about teaching, learning, and self-reliance. This is a book that contains lessons for all of us. What is the wall in the book’s title, the wall behind which so many of the book’s events unfold? Because the book contains so much about education and schools, one might immediately refer to Pink Floyd’s epic work, but there is even more here if that is possible. Here is an escarpment not necessarily built of bricks, an adamantine structure figuratively formed from a dark Maya, a wall of societal illusion and deception that sends a message of impending defeat to those confronting it. Connie and her friends are not vanquished, they are victorious through rapturous transcendence; they stare through the wall and ultimately atomize it using powerful, positive thinking which is in many ways attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s writing. The dust that is left is the symbolic remains of poverty, discrimination, class struggle, and intimidation that were the wall’s former elements. Though written by an English teacher, Behind the Wall is a work built on the poetry of emotions: Behind the Wall is a study of the beauty of imperfection: Behind the Wall is a patchwork quilt fashioned from the fabric of everyday people.”

– Denis Racine is a retired Secondary English teacher.

Behind the Wall is a 140-page paperback with a retail price of $15.00 (hardbound $28.00, eBook $10.00). The ISBN is 978-1-6853-7442-6. It was published by Dorrance Publishing Co., Inc of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. For members of the press, to request a review copy, visit our virtual pressroom at https://dorrancepressroom.com/behind-the-wall-1/ or to buy the book visit our online bookstore at https://bookstore.dorrancepublishing.com/behind-the-wall-pb/.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Connie Steinman is a Deaf teacher and has taught American Sign Language at the same high school for twenty years. She participated in UC Davis Globe Academy to direct students in a scene of Taming of the Shrew, received a Fulbright Scholarship for the China Institute 2015 to study the Silk Road and the Mao Goa Caves, and traveled to India twice for Teach for Peace to learn how to apply Gandhi’s philosophy in the classroom.

Praise for Behind the Wall

I read your book cover to cover yesterday and found it both saddening and uplifting. As a leader in my organization championing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion efforts, I have long known the unfairness in how our world treats, and in fact, creates marginalized urban youth. I applaud the courage it took to put on paper your struggles with what is arguably the most crucial, and yet least valued, profession – as well as your getting into the trenches every day to make a difference. Your honesty gives witness to what is important in life, the timeless impact of well-considered literature, and how the passion I saw in you at FIT (Florida Institute of Technology), still tills fertile, if a bit rocky, soil. You personify the philosophy so important to Mandela and Tutu – “Ubuntu”. You may know the term, but if not, it is a Nguni Bantu (Zulu) word that has been translated as “I am because we are” or “the belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity” (it is also the name of an open-source computer operating system so if you Google it, you may have to sift a bit). It recognizes that none of us can truly fulfill our role as human beings without serving those around us. Publishing a book as you have extends “those around us” to anyone who reads the book. Thank you!

– Steve Small- Professor of Photography/Architecture

“This is a book about teaching, learning, and self-reliance. This is a book that contains lessons for all of us. What is the wall in the book’s title, the wall behind which so many of the book’s events unfold? Because the book contains so much about education and schools, one might immediately refer to Pink Floyd’s epic work, but there is even more here if that is possible. Here is an escarpment not necessarily built of bricks, an adamantine structure figuratively formed from a dark Maya, a wall of societal illusion and deception that sends a message of impending defeat to those confronting it. Connie and her friends are not vanquished, they are victorious through rapturous transcendence; they stare through the wall and ultimately atomize it using powerful, positive thinking which is in many ways attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s writing. The dust that is left is the symbolic remains of poverty, discrimination, class struggle, and intimidation that were the wall’s former elements. Though written by an English teacher, Behind the Wall is a work built on the poetry of emotions: Behind the Wall is a study of the beauty of imperfection: Behind the Wall is a patchwork quilt fashioned from the fabric of everyday people.”

Denis Racine is a retired Secondary English teacher.

“Kudos to Connie for writing this book and sharing what some school systems are dealing with.

And for her perseverance with the students in helping them to believe in themselves and make it to graduation. Teachers are unsung heroes, and especially ones working in schools that don’t give much support. And with her hearing problem, I would have thought most people would have quit long ago. Thank you Connie, for not giving up on today’s kids and for sharing your experience!”

-Mauricio Gonzalez

“Looking for ways to integrate critical social-emotional skills like self-reliance into your English curriculum? Worried about the choices your students are making? You have come to the right place. In an unputdownable teaching memoir, Connie Steinman weaves lessons from Ralph Waldo Emerson into the fabric of her classroom. As her students grapple with Emerson’s language and recast his ideas in their own words, they discover ways of rethinking their attitudes towards conformity, dependence, and virtue. Prepare to be inspired.”

Carol Jago is a long-time high school English teacher and past president of the National Council of Teachers of English. She is the author of The Book in Question: Why and How Reading Is in Crisis (Heinemann).