Second Wind
Submitted by Taylor Stoehr (profile)

Title and Author: Second Wind by Bill Russell (and collaborator Taylor Branch)
Genre: Autobiography
Theme: The famous Boston Celtics basketball star and player-coach tells his life story
Class type: Best for males, especially if a majority of them are African Americans

In the Dorchester program, we have used excerpts from this book for many years, in combination with our basic text, Frederick Douglass's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, along with other excerpts from Malcolm X's Autobiography, or sometimes from Booker T. Washington's Up From Slavery. Especially useful for comparison texts are passages in Russell's autobiography where he describes his childhood (his father, mother, grandfather - all heroic figures), his learning to read (and his discovery that "history can tell lies"), his first lessons in defending himself against bullying, and his realization as a teenager that who he was was "all right" and not lacking in inner worth. All of these are themes that appear in Douglass's Narrative as well.

Suggested questions:

How do people learn to face the things that life will demand?
Where do people get their courage, self-esteem, and righteousness?

Additional questions:

What role should a parent play in teaching?
What is society's responsibility for setting and enforcing educational standards?
Is the use of force necessary to make children learn?
Can a genuine desire to learn be encouraged through enforced attendance, assignments, etc.?

Writing prompt:

What role should a parent play in teaching children to face hardship and temptation? When is the use of force necessary to teach the difference between right and wrong? Can a genuine desire to be "good" be encouraged through force? What part does wealth or poverty play in a child's acquisition of courage, self-esteem, and righteousness?

Which is most important? Parental guidance? Institutions like church and school? Peer pressure? Home environment (poverty/wealth)?

Additional prompt:

In the readings for this week, we've seen several different views of how people learn what they need to know in life. Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and Malcolm X had to overcome great obstacles to achieve their skills as readers and writers. Bill Russell discovered that books can lie, and this helped him better understand himself and the world. Sometimes the most important lessons do not come in school and are not a matter of books or academic skills at all - as Muhammad Ali discovered in the gym.

But you always have to work hard for any lesson worth knowing.

What about you? What have you learned in your life that seems especially important? How did you learn it?