Matriculation: Memoir

Gish Amit’s book opens with a long list of names: the names of his students, which he is unsure he can remember. To a great degree, this paragraph sums up the essence of the entire book: in his work as a teacher and later as principal of two schools, and in the face of external and internal pressure that threaten to erase the names of the students and dissolve their faces in the name of the system’s needs, the narrator seeks to recall their names and zealously protect their right to be unique. Matriculation describes the tense, complex process that the author experienced at two very different schools: first, a school for children of immigrants, exposed to the problems minorities face when struggling to exist in an indifferent society, and the second, an anthroposophical school seeking to protect the children’s innocence from the problems of the world. Matriculation boldly questions the role of education in a changing world; at the same time, it is a personal essay on the limitations of our interaction with our children.