Book Club — The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates

First discussion guide for our new book club read

“The chilling truth is that his story could have been mine. The tragedy is that my story could have been his. Our stories are obviously specific to our two lives, but I hope they will illuminate the crucial inflection points in every life, the sudden moments of decisions where our path diverge and our fates are sealed. It’s unsettling to know how little separates each of us from another life altogether.” — Wes Moore

THE BOOK

For our second edition of The Teachers Guild Book Club, we are reading The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates by the eponymous author, Wes Moore. The book tells the real story of two young men, both named Wes Moore, who were born a year apart and lived within a few blocks of each other in Baltimore. One Wes, the author, grows up to become a Rhodes Scholar and White House Fellow, while the other is incarcerated and serving a life sentence for an armed robbery he committed at age seventeen. The two men begin a long correspondence, initiated by the author, which ultimately leads to in person visits where they unpack their individual stories and reflect on how the contexts, decisions and opportunities (or lack thereof) that they each had led to their present circumstances.

We hope this book will provide yet another opportunity for empathy and act as both a prompt for productive conversations and a provocation to push ourselves as we design new college-ready solutions for students today as part of our collaboration with the Reach Higher and Better Make Room initiatives out of the office of The First Lady.

THE QUESTIONS

(Q1) Tell us about your personal and family values around education. What expectations were there around your education? Did you have a lot of pressure concerning going to college? Did your parents go to college?

(Q2)

“Young boys are more likely to believe in themselves if they know that there’s someone, somewhere, who shares that belief. To carry the burden of belief alone is too much for most young shoulders.” (pg. 28)

We were really struck by this notion of the “burden of belief” and the importance of having an adult in one’s life who believes in one’s potential. Did you have a mentor or someone to help you carry the burden? What were they like? How did they make you feel valued? Do you now fill that role for someone? Tell us your story.

(Q3) What struck you as interesting or noteworthy while you were reading? What would you like to discuss?

HOW TO PARTICIPATE

• If you haven’t already, create a Medium account. It’s very quick — if you have one, you can use your Twitter account info to log in.
• Read the book along with us.
• Tune in to our publication each Thursday afternoon to read and answer new questions.
• Answer the questions; share your favorite quotes and ideas from the book or share articles and videos which are relevant to the discussion; pose your own questions and reflections; and build upon other member’s answers.
• Host Book Club meet ups in your area! We’ve created a facilitator’s guide to help you plan and organize your meetup, view and download it here.

Check in next Thursday for our next set of questions.

Happy reading!