“At a time when too many children are disempowered by an education devoid of joy or meaning, Marv Hoffman reminds us of the magic that is made when teacher and student engage in first understanding, and then changing, the world.”
—Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president of the Children's Defense Fund

“How wonderful it is to reread that startling book; it takes me back 35 years to my decision to be a teacher for life. Thank you, Marvin, for tackling that ‘elephant’—class inequities—in our landscape and for your profoundly moving account of how they might be tackled today as well.”—Deborah Meier, educational reformer, writer, and activist

“With a learned and loving introduction that is also a testament of the civil rights generation's commitment to teaching, Marvin Hoffman has done a new generation a great service by reviving this wonderful, forgotten classic.”
—Joseph Featherstone, Michigan State University, co-author of Transforming Teacher Educationand “Dear Josie”

“In these days of endless testing and growing economic inequality, “You Won’t Remember Me” offers a humane vision of education and a powerful reflection on what it means to teach.”
—Mike Rose, UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, author of Possible Lives

In this new volume in the Between Teacher and Text Series, Marvin Hoffman provides a contemporary interpretation of a classic text for education reformers around the world. Published in 1967, Letter to a Teacher by the Schoolboys of Barbiana was a searing indictment of class bias in Italian schools. When the English translation was released in 1970, its ideas about education and socioeconomic class influenced an entire generation of American educators. Featuring most of the original text coupled with Hoffman’s insightful commentary, “You Won’t Remember Me” provides an alternative vision of how today’s public schools can provide a quality education for all children. Alongside the enduring voices of the Schoolboys of Barbiana, Hoffman addresses the purposes of education, the insidious effects of race and class, and what can and should be done to help students rise above social impediments to learning.

Marvin Hoffman is the founding director of the North Kenwood Oakland Charter School in Chicago and associate director of the Urban Teacher Education Program at the University of Chicago.