Rating: 
Summary: Who are the successful educators of AA children?
Review: I love this book. It's such an eye-opener and thought provoker. I relish each page because The Dreamkeepers is loaded with deep-felt subjective reality. Ladson-Billings is on the mark: a multicultural approach to teaching children is what teachers should use to establish expectations for their students. I would hope other authors, students of education and educators are reading the works Kathryn Au and Courtney Cazden. They bespeak Ladson-Billings plea to an approach to education that will result in fairness to all children, all cultures. I was somewhat perplexed about Ladson-Billings seeming insinuation in some areas of the book that black educators make better teachers of black children than white teachers. I think often we find some black teachers aren't the best educated either. I don't think a blanket statement should be made in favor of black teachers as the best educators of black children. I wouldn't be in favor of black immersion schools, which seems to be a suggestion in her book. I think Ladson-Billings should study the demography and the educators therein. In particular in the South, we'd not always find teachers (black nor white) ready for the classroom. Standardized tests scores prove that that southern children are behind the rest of the country, but I believe this is the fault of the teacher who not only is unaware of the importance of learning about the culture of the child, but also about becoming as well educated as he/she can be in subject matters before entering the classroom. I think schools, curriculum, and teachers (black and white) are at fault for failure. Again, I loved the book, even if I wasn't in whole-hearted agreement with all of its premises.
Rating: 
Summary: Linguistics
Review: I read this book for an education class, *after* I had already done extensive linguistic study. From a linguistic standpoint, Shirley Brice Heath's book "Ways With Words" is much more effective. Ladson-Billings glosses over the differences between African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) and Standard American English (SAE). There are vital distinctions between these that are important for any teacher of either dialect to understand! Heath's book is much more comphrehensive regarding both AAVE and SAE and even teaching in a classroom where both are spoken. I heartily recommend Heath; you can take or leave Ladson-Billings and I prefer to leave it.
Rating:
Summary: Linguistics
Review: I read this book for an education class, *after* I had already done extensive linguistic study. From a linguistic standpoint, Shirley Brice Heath's book "Ways With Words" is much more effective. Ladson-Billings glosses over the differences between African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) and Standard American English (SAE). There are vital distinctions between these that are important for any teacher of either dialect to understand! Heath's book is much more comphrehensive regarding both AAVE and SAE and even teaching in a classroom where both are spoken. I heartily recommend Heath; you can take or leave Ladson-Billings and I prefer to leave it.
Rating:
Summary: Review of Dreamkeepers
Review: I really enjoyed the book. It gave me an input about teaching Afro-American children from different races. What I mean is that the teacher interviews were from black and white teachers.I think that today's teachers should read this book so they can see how much teachers have in common.
Rating:
Summary: The book was okay I didn't follow along that well
Review: I thought the book was a little rough on white teachers and it was bias in some ways. I think it gave some good teaching techniques that will work in some class rooms. I feel that African American students are not hard to teach and they should not be treated any differently then other students.
Rating: 
Summary: Color Does Matter in the Classroom
Review: I was very impressed with the book, The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children by Gloria Ladson- Billings. I would recommend it to all teachers whether they be white or black. I would also urge African American parents to read this book because it is very insightful about the academic needs of African American students and how those needs should be met. The goal of this book is to give insight on educating through "culturally relevant teaching". Gloria Ladson-Billings gives a perspective to teaching that many people may not have considered before reading this book. Through culturally relevant teaching, for African American children specifically, educators use black culture to maintain it. In too many instances African American history and culture are not represented in textbooks and curriculum and many times when it is represented it is distorted in some way. This neglect in accurately teaching black children gives them a negative outlook on life and their people. The specific examples used by the author show culturally relevant teahing at work and how it has been successful.
Rating:
Summary: Color Does Matter in the Classroom
Review: I was very impressed with the book, The Dreamkeepers:Successful Teachers of African American Children by Gloria Ladson-Billings. I would recommend it to all teachers whether they be white or black. I would also urge African American parents to read this book because it is very insightful about the academic needs of African American students and how those needs should be met. The goal of this book is to give insight on educating through "culturally relevant teaching". Gloria Ladson-Billings gives a perspective to teaching that many people may not have considered before reading this book. Through culturally relevant teaching, for African American children specifically, educators use black culture to maintain it. In too many instances African American history and culture are not represented in textbooks and curriculum and many times when it is represented it is distorted in some way. This neglect in accurately teaching black children gives them a negative outlook on life and their people. The specific examples used by the author show culturally relevant teaching at work and how it has been successful.
Rating:
Summary: Compelling glimpses at successful teaching
Review: Ladson-Billings offers her readers the challenge to change teaching practices to be more culturally sensitive to individual student's needs, particularly of African American students. She portrays a culturally relevant style of teaching through the lenses of eight superior teachers and examines the possibilities of how this pedagogy can be incorporated into today's schools.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent, easy reading and cultural relevant
Review: Ladson-Billings, wrote an extraordinary book on African American students and the struggles they face trying to receive an education equal to that of other races. She took a look into the classrooms of eight teachers who perhaps had different teaching styles, but all had one common goal to provide an education for all students. She wrote this book from an author, a student, a teacher,and a parent's prospective. She included such issues as being a cultural relevant teacher. Being a teacher who doesn't mind accomodating and adapting to the needs of her students. She also addressed the issue of teachers who were assimilators. If you have any plans or desires to teach, this is a must read book. This book was enjoyable, easy to read, and cultural relevant.
Rating: 
Summary: This
Review: The book "Dremkeepers" written by Gloria Ladson-Billings was not at all what I expected.I am a college student majoring in education and I had to read this book for my class.I chose this book because I thought this book was going to be about the true stories of how African American students over came the odds with the help of their "teachers." However, this was a book in which Billings took her own life stories and pulled out her best teachers or teachers that she felt were excellent at their career. Ms. Billings put the world in black and white and that's not it. Yes,in some cases AA children do learn differently depending on their environment,faith,cultural background and so forth but does not every child. I can sense that the author has a lot of disappointments with the education of African Americans and I can relate to her. However, the world is not Black and White and we as educators must be able to love and teach all culturals to be successful.
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