Goodbye Homeboy: How My Students Drove Me Crazy and Inspired a Movement - Softcover

Mariotti, Steve; Devi, Debra

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1948836009 ISBN 13: 9781948836005

Publisher: BenBella Books, 2019

Synopsis

One sunny afternoon in 1982, a young businessman experienced a terrifying mugging in New York City that shook him to his core.

Tortured by nightmares about the teens who roughed him up, Steve Mariotti sought counseling. When his therapist suggested that he face his fears, Mariotti closed his small import-export business and became a teacher at the city’s most notorious public school--Boys and Girls High in Bed-Stuy.

Although his nightmares promptly ceased, Mariotti’s out-of-control students rapidly drove him to despair.

One day, Mariotti stepped out of the classroom so his students wouldn’t see him cry. In a desperate move to save his job, he took off his watch and marched back in with an impromptu sales pitch for it. To his astonishment, his students were riveted. He was able to successfully lead a math lesson for the first time.

Mariotti realized his students felt trapped in soul-crushing poverty. They saw zero connection between school and improving their lives. Whenever Mariotti connected their lessons to entrepreneurship, though, even his most disruptive students got excited about learning.

School administrators disapproved of Mariotti discussing money in the classroom, however. He was repeatedly fired before receiving one last-ditch assignment: an offsite program for special-ed students expelled from the public schools for violent crimes.

The success Mariotti had with these forgotten children—including coverage in the Daily News, The New York Times, and World News Tonight—inspired him to found the nonprofit Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship to bring entrepreneurship education to low-income youth.

By turns tragic and hilarious, Goodbye Homeboy shares Mariotti’s flaws and missteps as he connects deeply with his troubled students, and woos the most influential people in the world into helping them--saving himself in the process.

Today, Mariotti is widely recognized as the world’s leading advocate for entrepreneurship education. More than one million young people from Chicago to China have graduated from NFTE programs, and NFTE counts Sean Combs, Chelsea Clinton, Diana Davis Spencer, and many more business, entertainment, and community leaders among its staunchest supporters.

As Goodbye Homeboy powerfully illustrates, a spark of hope really can empower us to overcome life’s greatest hardships.

About this title

About the Author

Steve Mariotti is the founder and former CEO of the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), and an advocate for entrepreneurs worldwide. His previous books include the Young Entrepreneur’s Guide to Starting and Running a Business and An Entrepreneur’s Manifesto, which makes a convincing case for the power of entrepreneurship education to combat poverty, terrorism and totalitarianism. Mariotti is also the author of award-winning junior, high-school and college textbooks on entrepreneurship and small business management. He is a popular Huffington Post blogger.

In 1982, Mariotti left a successful business career to become a public high-school teacher in tough New York City neighborhoods like East New York, Bed-Study, and Fort Apache in the South Bronx. Frustrated at first by his rowdy classrooms, Mariotti discovered he could motivate even his most challenging students by teaching them how to run a small business. This experience inspired him to create NFTE in 1987 to bring entrepreneurship education to low-income youth, and empower them to create pathways out of poverty. Today, NFTE is widely considered the leading provider of entrepreneurship education to low-income youth worldwide.

Debra Devi is an award-winning author, journalist and musician based in Jersey City NJ. She has co-authored numerous books with Steve Mariotti, including The Young Entrepreneur's Guide to Starting a Business, How to Start and Operate a Small Business, winner of the Golden Lamp Award for excellence in educational publishing, and An Entrepreneur's Manifesto. Devi's book The Language of the Blues: From Alcorub to Zuzu (foreword by Dr. John) received the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award. As a journalist, Devi has written for Investor's Daily, American Banker, Crain's New York, The Village Voice, RollingStone.com, Guitar World and more. An accomplished guitarist and singer, Devi performs internationally and received a proclamation from Jersey City for her contribution to the arts. 

Review

Steve Mariotti is one of the great teachers of our time. In this deeply personal memoir, he describes how a bunch of high-school dropouts in the South Bronx helped him discover the power of entrepreneurship education. Goodbye Homeboy is a page turner -- once you open this book you won't be able to put it down. -- Verne Harnish, Entrepreneurs' Organization founder and author of Scaling Up

Steve Mariotti's moving memoir is a call to action for anyone who dares to dream, and dream big! Steve's entrepreneurial spirit led him from calming his contentious classroom and nurturing his students' 'street smarts' to becoming the founder of a booming nonprofit. -- Erin Gruwell, teacher and author of The Freedom Writers Diary

So many personal stories today are described as 'inspiring,' but Goodbye Homeboy is the rare, true-story that genuinely transcends the word. Steve Mariotti's memoir conveys the heart, soul, and determination that has catalyzed the lives of so many young people. -- Ray Chambers, World Health Organization Ambassador for Global Strategy

I'm so inspired to finally read the inspiring, intense, and hilarious story behind the organization that helped me so much as a high schooler. NFTE taught me entrepreneurship skills that I still use to this day, as the CEO of a company that employs thousands and is transforming the real-estate industry. -- Robert Reffkin, founder and CEO of Compass

Goodbye Homeboy truly captures Steve Mariotti's amazing journey as a teacher and an innovator. It's engaging, heartbreaking, hopeful, and ultimately triumphant. This is the story behind the entrepreneurship-education revolution!! -- Jimmy "Mac" McNeal, Bulldog Bikes founder"This book can be tear-jerking sad but it will also make you rise up out of your chair and fist pump the sky while you cheer these formally despondent students on. A must read for anyone who believes our school systems could use a good kick in the pants." -- Vincent Zandri, New York Times bestselling author
When the summer heat is in full swing we fully expect people to be pool or beachside soaking up Steve Mariotti's groundbreaking book "Goodbye Homeboy: How My Students Drove Me Crazy and Inspired a Movement." -- The Virginia Gazette

Appropriately peppered with rasty street talk, Steve shares the process of his life. That is the ultimate goal of fine writing, and here it is. GOODBYE HOMEBOY is bound to become a best seller - and could become a fine screenplay...this century's answer to Evan Hunter's BLACKBOARD JUNGLE! Highly Recommended. -- San Francisco Review of Books

This book will have readers enthralled and turning the pages long past the time they thought they would be hitting the beach. -- Chicago Tribune 

Mariotti weaves a dramatic and heart-warming tale that starts with Mariotti being plagued by nightmares after some teens roughed him up on the streets of NYC in the '80s. -- The Morning Call

Steve Mariotti's new book "Goodbye Homeboy: How My Students Drove Me Crazy and Inspired a Movement" will no doubt be the hottest read of the summer when it hits the stores on August 6, 2019. -- Capital Gazette

If you are looking for a book that is truly moving and inspiriting, a book that will take you away to a place that you will never want to leave, then this is the book for you. -- MSNBC

Steve Mariotti's Goodbye Homeboy is the first-person account of a former financial whiz kid who chose to work for decades in the trenches of New York City's roughest schools. What he learned there dramatically changed his life and those of his students.After a gang of New York City teens robbed Mariotti in 1981, he was plagued by debilitating nightmares and flashbacks. Determined to understand what drove the kids who jumped him, he took his therapist's advice to "face his fears" literally, closing his import-export business and volunteering to work in notoriously rough high schools in impoverished neighborhoods. His students were remedial learners, special ed kids and those with discipline problems.In the beginning, the author's classes were chaos, but while teaching remedial math, Mariotti devised the idea of imparting entrepreneurial business skills. He gradually discovered his rowdy kids would settle down when learning about how to make money. In fact, the stress of their lives made them natural entrepreneurs: "They were comfortable with risk and ambiguity. They were gutsy...and natural salespeople," writes Mariotti. Learning how to earn made students eager to conquer math skills, and eventually, the author developed games and strategies for learning.His students' lives are riveting. Readers will be swept up in the suspense of whether individual kids will make it--those like Tawana, a third-generation welfare recipient who was inspired to start a manicure business, or Victor, a smart-mouth drug dealer who once brought $18,000 to school; when thugs threatened to kill Mariotti if Victor didn't pay them, Victor revealed his stash to the robbers, saving Mariotti's life. In 1987, Mariotti's unique teaching method led him to found Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE), a national multi-million-dollar nonprofit that teaches low- income kids entrepreneurial skills. The success stories are innumerable, but the deaths of 14 NFTE students remind readers of the challenges involved.This is an important, compelling story. Readers interested in the reality of extreme poverty and violence will find it well written, terrifying, and finally uplifting. Also available in ebook and audio book.BlueInk. Reviewed: September, 2019

When a great story presents real-life experiences that make a reader reflect, then it is worth reading and re-reading it. This is what I suggest with Steve Mariotti's Goodbye Homeboy. In this inspiring memoir, Mariotti recalls the beginnings of his nonprofit organization, NFTE (Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship). The aim of NFTE is to teach entrepreneurship to low-income students to give them a better future. Mariotti's story began in the early 1980s when he taught in the poorest neighborhoods in New York City. There, Mariotti discovered that his students had incredible potential but did not consider education a way to improve their lives. It was at that point when Mariotti decided to make a difference. He began to teach his students entrepreneurship to help them have a better future.Perhaps the term "adventurous" does not seem to fit in this context at first. And yet, while I was reading about all the difficulties Mariotti overcame, this definition came spontaneously into my mind. Goodbye Homeboy recalls Mariotti's courageous journey. It recollects adversities and joys and introduces exceptional people. I liked to read about the students' backgrounds because they give an excellent idea of what these young people suffered. For their part, Mariotti's efforts reveal his determination and commitment. There is a time to smile, a time to reflect, and a time to cry, but Mariotti's honesty and candor always strike you. Despite what he achieved, he never gives the impression of lecturing, and yet he finds a way to offer sound advice. Mariotti's efforts are commendable, and Goodbye Homeboy is the perfect book to showcase them.Reviewed by Astrid Iustulin for Readers' Favorite

"Goodbye Homeboy: How My Students Drove Me Crazy and Inspired a Movement," author Steve Mariotti's memoir, tells the story of a teacher's early experiences working with some of the most mistreated students living in the inner city in the 1980s. Along the way, readers watch a young man face one adversity after another with humility and refreshing honesty.
"Goodbye Homeboy" mixes the graceful with the ghastly, delivering its message of resiliency with equal parts of efficiency and compassion. Mr. Mariotti and Debra Devi compel the reader to reconsider any and all prejudices about both him and his students. Equally important, they succeed in giving the community of the South Bronx the respect it deserves (which I believe they were aiming to do).
More at Reader Reviews.
Reviewed by Araceli Noriega for Reader Views (11/19)

About this edition

• Publisher: BenBella Books
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 1948836009
• ISBN 13: 9781948836005
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304