Secret Schools: True Stories of the Determination to Learn

by Heather Camlot, Erin Taniguchi (Illustrator)

Overview

Education goes undercover in this compelling look at some of the world’s most secretive schools through history

Can you keep a secret? What if it meant hiding from your loved ones, sneaking out late at night, or risking imprisonment? And what if that secret was that you were going to school?

From covert classrooms created by enslaved Africans in the United States, to academic schools disguised as “sewing lessons” for women in Afghanistan, to espionage schools run by powerful governments, Secret Schools explores the hidden classrooms that have opened their doors so children and adults could learn.

Vivid linocut illustrations and interesting facts enhance the book’s 15 true stories of resilience and courage in the pursuit of education. Accompanying profiles for each story introduce readers to an important person who played a significant role in each secret school. Concluding with a look at inventive approaches to education in today’s world, this deep dive into clandestine learning will invite readers to think deeply about the meaning of education and the barriers many face in accessing it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781771474603
Publisher:	OWLKIDS BOOKS
Publication date:	09/13/2022
Pages:	48
Product dimensions:	7.50(w) x 9.50(h) x 0.38(d)
Lexile:	1150L (what's this?)
Age Range:	9 - 12 Years

About the Author

Award-winning writer HEATHER CAMLOT is the author of Secret Schools and What If Soldiers Fought with Pillows?. A journalist for more than 20 years, she has written, edited and translated for various print and online publications. Originally from Montreal, she now lives in Toronto, Ontario, with her family.

ERIN TANIGUCHI is an illustrator and printmaker who earned their fine arts degree from Emily Carr Universityand has been working as an artist for almost a decade. Their work can be seen in numerous magazines throughout North America, illustrating works of fiction, current affairs and political articles. They are based in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Table of Contents

Introduction 4

Section 1 Cultural Connections-Protecting One's Identity 6

Section 2 Hope and Dignity-Escaping Slavery and Oppression 14

Section 3 Girls' Rights-Banding Together for Gender Equality 22

Section 4 Spy Schools-Going Underground and Undercover 30

Section 5 Radical Learning-Moving in a New Direction 38

Conclusion 46

Notes and Selected Bibliography 48

Editorial Reviews

"A timely look at past and present tales of students struggling to learn at all costs ... This book will surely inspire students to conduct further research on many of these underground schools as well as the many brave individuals who made them possible."

School Library Connection

"A humbling account of peoples around the world, now and in history, that covertly struggle to learn despite the dangers involved."

Canadian Children's Book News

"The information is interesting and presented in short sections ... Recommended."

Canadian Review of Materials

"An interesting, often inspiring overview of a topic rarely examined for this age group that will motivate readers to explore further."

Booklist

"Inspiring ... Readers will gain a new perspective about the world around them and their own role as students."

BC Teachers' Federation

"A timely look at past and present tales of students struggling to learn at all costs ... This book will surely inspire students to conduct further research on many of these underground schools as well as the many brave individuals who made them possible."

From the Publisher

2022-05-25
Inspiring tributes to select underground and nontraditional schools and those who founded them.

Gathering her brief accounts into thematic chapters, Camlot starts off with cases of schools founded to preserve suppressed languages or cultural identities—for Japanese migrant workers in Brazil and Indigenous Kichwa speakers in Ecuador in the mid-20th century, for instance—then goes on to highlight similar efforts to educate enslaved or imprisoned people (in the United States and the Third Reich) and girls and women in countries such as Iran, Afghanistan, and Poland. Many of the activist founders and teachers remain anonymous, but Camlot does offer nods to, for example, Frederick Douglass and Nelson Mandela as well as Ecuador’s crusader Dolores Cacuango, Lithuanian book smuggler Jurgis Bielinis (whose birthday is a national holiday), and Mohammed Nasir Rahiyab, supporter of the subversive “Golden Needle Sewing School” in Herat, Afghanistan. How an ensuing look at spy training academies in Canada, Great Britain, and the USSR fits in is anybody’s guess, though, and along with reporting on a school in Jakarta for children of Muslim suicide bombers and underground reading groups in South Korea in the 1980s, the final chapter features only tantalizing glimpses of modern experiments in, as the heading has it, “Radical Learning.” Taniguchi’s stylized illustrations of studious figures in small groups underscore the fact that most of the courageous teachers and students here are or were people of color.

Runs off the rails partway through but offers food for thought to children taking their right to an education for granted. (notes, bibliography) (Nonfiction. 10-12)

Kirkus Reviews