Pazmino and what an Adler review can do for you

In the first week of class, Linda and I were assigned to do an "Adler" review of the book Latin American Journey by Robert Pazmino. An Adler review is just shorthand for using Adler's model to summarize the main points of a book after a quick skim of its contents. With 16 units and an internship this quarter, I may be using this technique a few times (but definitely not in CF526, Dr Branson!!). When I saw our handout on Adler in the course syllabus I was reminded that for Christmas my cousin actually gave me Adler's book, cunningly entitled: How to Read a Book. I never opened it for three reasons:

1) I am in grad school and don't have time to read books that are not required, unless they are cookbooks.

2) I was offended by the title. As a first-generation college student and now a grad student, I have completed more formal education than my forebears and it's sometimes within the realm of their sense of humor to try to remind me that I'm not as smart as I think I am. (For the record, I am quite aware that college degrees are mainly a measure of perseverance, not necessarily intelligence.)

And
3) I went on vacation to Santa Barbara over Spring Break and while I brought the book, it just wasn't as enticing as the online episodes of Eli Stone and Men in Trees that I missed in primetime during Winter quarter.

So I didn't read How to Read a Book when I got it for Christmas. But after doing this assignment with Linda in class, I realized what a valuable tool an Adler review is. I only earned how to do it via an outline from class, but even the summary of the technique is helpful.

Essentially, with Adler's outline in hand, you can take a book that you haven't read and outline the major points, shifts in thinking and critiques of the ideas just by skimming through it and looking at the introduction, chapter headings, topic sentences and chapter summaries. While I'm aware that this is not a useful tool for reading comprehension, my experience of it was eye-opening.

When I first looked at this book, it just looked awful to me. The title turned me off. I'm not interested in the Latin American Journey - my worst memories of freshman year in undergrad include the slow death of my aspiration to be a Humanities major after reading a volume called, The Conquest of New Spain. Reading Pazmino's title made me feel like I was about to embark on the long and embattled history of a continent -- a Latin American Journey. The subtitle, Insights for Christian Education in North America, also seemed dull and stilted. But after looking through this book with Linda and using Adler's questions to mine out some of the ideas, I realized I had been judging a book by its cover. Pazmino himself went on the Latin American journey so he tells a firsthand report of it (and does it quite crisply in the Introduction) and he has some interesting insights into developing Christian education. He also clarified some of my confusion about what "liberation theology" is. Altogether, I am now highly interested in reading this book, however, now my dilemma is whether to read it now or wait until week eight when it's assigned to be read.