 First edition | |
| Author | Daniel Pinkwater |
|---|---|
| Genre | Young adult fiction |
| Publisher | Farrar Straus Giroux |
Publication date | 1998 |
| Pages | 167 pp. |
| ISBN | 9780374319694 |
The Education of Robert Nifkin is a 1998 novel written for young adults by United States author Daniel Pinkwater. [1] It is set during the 1950s in Chicago and is written in the format of a college application essay. It follows the unusual high school experience of the narrator, Robert Nifkin.
Robert attended Riverview High School, which was only notable for its anti-semitic attitudes, homophobia, boredom, and anti-communist paranoia. Robert has no interest in any of his classes except for ROTC, a class he is taking instead of PE. His boredom and hatred for school grows and he eventually stops attending for large periods of time, preferring to hang out with Kenny Papescu and his girlfriend Linda in a very beatnik part of town. On a day that he actually attends, he found out that his ROTC sergeant had been fired, on the grounds of being a Communist. Robert's truancy increased even more, except on the occasions that he sought shelter in Riverview from the Chicago winter.
Finally, the school ordered him to be transferred to a correctional school but upon the recommendation of Kenny Papescu, Robert convinced his parents to let him attend Wheaton, a private school. At Wheaton, truancy, when it is even noticed, goes unpunished. This is how, Robert learns, Kenny Papescu has not been to school in over two years. Robert ends up getting straight A's, some in courses he didn't know he was enrolled in. Robert matures greatly while attending the Wheaton school and learns to appreciate art, chess, and the city's architecture; the freedom that it provides allows him to explore his interests with the guidance of the teachers. Robert concluded his high school reflection with the hope that he be admitted to college.
Truancy is any intentional, unjustified, unauthorised, or illegal absence from compulsory education. It is a deliberate absence by a student's own free will and usually does not refer to legitimate excused absences, such as ones related to medical conditions. Truancy is usually explicitly defined in the school's handbook of policies and procedures. Attending school but not going to class is called internal truancy. Some children whose parents claim to homeschool have also been found truant in the United States. In some schools, truancy may result in not being able to graduate or to receive credit for classes attended, until the time lost to truancy is made up through a combination of detention, fines, or summer school.
Wheaton College is a private Evangelical Christian liberal arts college in Wheaton, Illinois. It was founded by evangelical abolitionists in 1860. Wheaton College was a stop on the Underground Railroad and graduated one of Illinois' first black college graduates.
The Girl Next Door is a 2004 American romantic comedy film directed by Luke Greenfield. It follows a high school senior who falls in love for the first time with the girl next door, but finds the situation becoming complicated after he learns that she is a former pornographic actress. It stars Emile Hirsch, Elisha Cuthbert, Timothy Olyphant, James Remar, Chris Marquette, and Paul Dano. The film received mixed reviews and low theatrical attendance at the time, but over time has gained cult film status.
Robert Maynard Hutchins was an American educational philosopher. He was president (1929–1945) and chancellor (1945–1951) of the University of Chicago, and earlier dean of Yale Law School (1927–1929). His first wife was the novelist Maude Hutchins. Although his father and grandfather were both Presbyterian ministers, Hutchins became one of the most influential members of the school of secular perennialism.
Daniel Manus Pinkwater is an American author of children's books and young adult fiction. His books include Lizard Music, The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death, Fat Men from Space, Borgel, and the picture book The Big Orange Splot. He has also written an adult novel, The Afterlife Diet, and essay collections derived from his talks on National Public Radio.
Back to School is a 1986 American comedy film starring Rodney Dangerfield, Keith Gordon, Sally Kellerman, Burt Young, Terry Farrell, William Zabka, Ned Beatty, Sam Kinison, Paxton Whitehead and Robert Downey Jr. It was directed by Alan Metter. The plot centers on a wealthy but uneducated father (Dangerfield) who goes to college to show solidarity with his discouraged son Jason (Gordon) and learns that he cannot buy an education or happiness.
"Butt Out" is the thirteenth episode of the seventh season of the American animated television series, South Park, and is the 109th episode overall. It first aired on Comedy Central in the United States on December 3, 2003.
Dropping out means leaving high school, college, university or another group for practical reasons, necessities, inability, apathy, or disillusionment with the system from which the individual in question leaves.
Wheaton North High School (WNHS), locally referred to as "North" is a public four-year high school in Wheaton, Illinois, a western suburb of Chicago. It is one of two high schools that are part of Community Unit School District 200, the other being Wheaton Warrenville South High School.
Anti-schooling activism or radical education reform describes positions that are critical of school as a learning institution and/or compulsory schooling laws or multiple attempts and approaches to fundamentally change the school system respectively. People of this movement usually advocate alternatives to the traditional school system, education independent from school, the absence of the concept of schooling as a whole, or at least the right that people can choose where and how they are educated.
Kenneth Tyron Wheaton is a former professional American football defensive back in the National Football League for the Dallas Cowboys. He also was a member of the Toronto Argonauts in the Canadian Football League. He played college football at the University of Oregon.
Maurice Frank Kenny was an American poet who identified as Mohawk descent.
Jonathan Blanchard was an American pastor, educator, social reformer, and abolitionist. Born in Vermont, Blanchard attended Middlebury College before accepting a teaching position in New York. In 1834, he left to study at Andover Theological Seminary, but departed in 1836 after the college rejected agents from the American Anti-Slavery Society. Blanchard joined the group as one of Theodore Dwight Weld's "seventy" and preached in favor of abolition in southern Pennsylvania.
The Beaufort County School District educates nearly 22,000 students in Beaufort County, South Carolina, United States. It is the second fastest-growing county in the state.
The Long Haul is an autobiography of Myles Horton, labor organizer, founder of the Highlander School and perhaps the first practitioner of what would later be called popular education. Highlander used the principles of democratic education - where students were the authorities in the classroom, the teacher is a facilitator, and the focus of education is teaching collective action for social change - to play a key role in the labor movement of the 1930s and the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Horton pioneered many of the educational principles Paulo Freire would make famous worldwide in the 1980s.
Wheaton Academy (WA) is a private, Christian, co-educational high school in West Chicago, Illinois, which was established as part of the Illinois Institute by a group of evangelical abolitionists in 1853. The Illinois Institute was reorganized into Wheaton College and Wheaton College Academy, a preparatory school, in 1860. Wheaton Academy established an independent campus in West Chicago in 1945.
Kevin John Hickey was an American left-handed pitcher who spent six seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) with the Chicago White Sox (1981–1983) and Baltimore Orioles (1989–1991). It was with the White Sox that he was a reliever with the American League (AL) West titlist in 1983 and a batting practice pitcher for the 2005 World Series Champions.
Rayford Steele is a fictional character and the de facto protagonist in the Left Behind series of novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins. He is the leader of the group known as the Tribulation Force, and is the most fully developed character in the series.
Markus Levonte Wheaton is a former American football wide receiver. He played college football for Oregon State University and was drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers in the third round of the 2013 NFL Draft. He also played for the Chicago Bears and Philadelphia Eagles.
A Sort of Life is the first volume of autobiography by British novelist Graham Greene, first published in 1971.
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