Praise for Schooled (Teachers College Press, 2015)
"A fascinating journey into the lives of nine American teachers – all different but tied together with a similar tone of dedication, passion and hope to change young people’s lives. Anyone interested in the diverse world of education should read this book. Everyone who thinks that teaching is so easy that anyone can do it must read this book. As they say, teaching is not rocket science, it’s more complicated than that.” – Pasi Sahlberg, author of Finnish Lessons 2.0: What Can the World Learn from Educational Change in Finland
"In Schooled, high school teacher Anne Lutz Fernandez and sociocultural anthropologist Catherine Lutz introduce us to devoted teachers whose luminous commitment to the intellectual, social, political, and emotional development of children and youth, despite increasingly difficult work conditions, gives us reason for hope. By showing us that 'the ordinary work of teaching is extraordinary,' the authors reveal the disconnect between teachers’ arduous, intellectual daily work and the cascade of recent educational reforms....Schooled pays tribute to passionate, informed educators, but directly challenges the reforms now being forced upon them. The book is an electrifying and inspiring must read for teachers and everyone concerned with the fate of our schools."-Lesley Bartlett, Associate Professor, Educational Policy Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison
"This book makes an important case for defying the standardization that passes for school reform, while we learn first hand what it means to teach today in a changing social, cultural and political environment." - Ann Lieberman, Senior Scholar, Stanford University
"This well-written book by Fernandez and Lutz fills an important gap in understanding teachers' work in a climate of test-based accountability. In integrating two strands of perspectives, namely, field-based practice and cultural anthropology, the authors illuminate the voices of nine teachers in navigating their 'extraordinary' practices in their own setting. This book will rapidly become a required reading not only among educators but also among education policy reformers. Clearly, lessons learned from these contextually-rich case studies will inform our current policy debate on charting the steps in supporting the teaching profession." - Kenneth K. Wong, Chair, Education Department; Director, Urban Education Policy Program; Walter and Leonore Annenberg Professor for Education Policy; and Professor of Political Science, Public Policy, and Urban Studies, Brown University
"Schooled is a wonderful, readable book to share with local critics of education and policy makers...or as a selection for a teachers’ book club....Reading these case studies affirms that teachers are real people with a commitment to helping students but who come with their own personal challenges in addition to dealing with the current negative discourse about education and conflicting reform movements. For those still in the classroom, Schooled echoes many of their own views and situations. For those who have been out of the classroom for a long time or those who have never taught, the book affirms 'what it means to teach with passion and talent in a changing social, cultural and political environment.'" - Delta Kappa Gamma Bulletin
"Faces of teachers and stories from their classrooms demonstrate that policies and pedagogic practices are not lived out in a vacuum but within the diversity that makes up our classrooms...Lutz Fernandez and Lutz offer considerations for reform movements, the notion of austerity, teacher workloads as well as a need and suggestions for teachers to become purposeful advocates for their students. In our era of standardized schooling, with little attention given to teacher and student experiences with prescribed policies and pedagogies, this work is a must read by those in the field, pre-service teachers, and those removed from the field that have an interest in education." - McGill Journal of Education
Praise for Catherine Lutz and Anne Lutz Fernandez's Carjacked (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010)
“In Carjacked, an anthropologist and writer delve into American car culture—the romance that longed ago turned into marriage—and offer a thorough, gimlet-eyed assessment.” - Tom Vanderbilt, Author of Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do
"The authors capture the fantasy and reality of our love of cars. They hold up a mirror to we, 'the people,' to let us look at our individual and collective glamour and bloat. They ask, subtly and with a good amount of wit, if we know what we are doing to ourselves? You must read it to learn the answers, which might surprise you." - John Hofmeister, former president of Shell Oil and author of Why We Hate the Oil Companies
"Americans' infatuation with their cars is critiqued in this readable treatment. Replete with the ironic and irrational aspects of owning and driving cars, it partakes of car psychology to deliver its message about the statistical costs of four-wheeled freedom. Emphasizing the attachment of values such as personal independence to car ownership, not to mention self-image and status, Lutz and Fernandez cheerily saunter through automobile advertising and movies to show how mass media exploit people's desire to buy cars." -Booklist
“Strongly recommended for all willing to consider that we need to 'step away from the car.'" -Library Journal
“Sisters Lutz and Lutz Fernandez are an anthropology professor and an investment banker turned English teacher, respectively. Their book was prompted by the death of a relative, and presents both the sustained critique that such an affective genesis would suggest, and the rounded approach implied by the authors' backgrounds and expertise ….This is a timely, vigorous and painfully enjoyable critique of the automobile in a world of depleting resources and sharpened priorities.” - Times Higher Education (UK)
“Looks at how car culture takes over our daily routines and how we might wrest back some of that control.” –The Wall Street Journal
"Thought-provoking inquiry into the role of cars in our lives, most especially the suburban lifestyle that cars created. Their main conclusion is for Americans to examine how they use their cars as opposed to how they think they use them. In other words, to strip away the romantic fancies fed by memories, folklore and advertisers, and face the reality of the best way to get from A to B. Such a reality check up, they argue, could result in a more rational approach to driving with people using cars less and walking or bicycling or taking buses or trains more." -The Providence Journal
"Carjacked aims to answer certain questions that lie deep in our brains - the unnoticed, unremarked-upon equivalents of spare tires in trunks: Why do cars play such a central role in our lives? Are they really as essential as they seem? Is there a sager, saner way to live with the car and have the mobility we need?" - Connecticut Post
"This need for a more balanced transportation environment also underscores Catherine Lutz's and Anne Lutz Fernandez's powerful and sobering Carjacked, which examines the many unanticipated consequences of car culture. No mere anti-car manifesto, Carjacked is an anthropological study of what the authors refer to as the 'car system,' of which the automakers are merely one element...They have assembled a fascinating and disturbing portrait of something we accept as normal--indeed essential--but which has, in many ways, betrayed much of its original promise." - The Winnipeg Free Press
“Authors Catherine Lutz and Anne Lutz Fernandez effectively and accessibly lay out the social, financial, historical, and of course, environmental impact of America's love affair with the internal combustion engine." -PlanetGreen
“Anyone who thinks that the awesome power of the private automobile doesn’t come with great responsibilities would do well to read through the relentless documentation of these costs that makes up the book Carjacked.” -The Truth About Cars