Join local educator, poet and author Bernie Jankowski in Speer Hall on May 30th at 7:00 p.m. In conversation with moderator Michelle Roche, Bernie will explore his powerful new book, Music in the Halls, which recounts his years teaching in a low-income DC school.
Through vignettes, essays, snapshots, portraits, and poems, Music in the Halls reveals the inner workings of a high-poverty District of Columbia Public School. In it, Bernie shows the visceral and emotional nature of childhood poverty and trauma and how it not only impacts a student’s ability to learn but also how it restricts their ability to live a full life. The book uncovers the interwoven worlds of children and their parents, teachers and administrators, and the DCPS bureaucracy.
Music in the Halls is an exploration of how one man’s understanding and compassion can be transformed and expanded to encompass and embrace this world. The book raises important questions for all of us about how to respond to the pressures and mental health challenges facing teachers and children today.
Location: Speer Hall, 17800 Elgin Rd. (109)
Join the PS! Book Club virtually, when we discuss Music in the Halls on May 20TH at 7:00 p.m., then meet the author in person at this event on May 30TH.
Bernard Jankowski is currently an English and Special Education teacher at JPMS. He was formerly Head of the English Department and an AP Teacher at RICA, an educational facility serving adolescents with severe emotional disabilities. Previously, he was a Teacher and Special Education Coordinator at a high-poverty elementary school. Prior to teaching, he led a groundbreaking foundation research service. He has published two full-length poetry collections and several chapbooks, including Shadows of the Monocacy, a collaboration with painter Ed Ramsburg, that explores our region’s rivers and wild places.