Raising Ollie
How My Nonbinary Art-Nerd Kid Changed (Nearly) Everything I Know
Tom Rademacher
RADEMACHER WRITES ABOUT TEACHING AT MRTOMRAD.MEDIUM.COM
The account of one radically new school year for a Teacher of the Year and for his nonbinary, art-obsessed, brilliant child
Raising Ollie is Tom Rademacher’s story of one eventful and sometimes painful school year, parenting his nonbinary, art-obsessed, brilliant child and relearning every day what it means to be a father and teacher. Rademacher reveals how raising a kid changes everything—and how much raising a kid like Ollie can teach us about who we are and what we’re doing in the world.
"As vulnerable and honest a piece I’ve ever read from an educator, Tom Rademacher’s beautiful and conversational story ought to encourage more of us to dig deeper and reflect harder."—José Luis Vilson, educator, father, executive director of EduColor, and author of This Is Not A Test: A New Narrative on Race, Class, and Education
Seven-year-old Ollie was researching local advanced school programs—because every second grader does that, right? Ollie, who used to hate weekends because they meant no school, was crying on the way to school almost every day. Sure, there were the slings and arrows of bullies and bad teachers, but, maybe worse, Ollie, a funny, anxious, smart kid with a thing for choir and an eye for graphic art, was gravely underchallenged and also struggling with identity and how to live totally as themselves. Ollie begged to switch to a new school with “kids like me,” where they wouldn’t feel so alone, or so bored, and so they made the change.
Raising Ollie is dad Tom Rademacher’s story (really, many stories) of that eventful and sometimes painful school year, parenting Ollie and relearning every day what it means to be a father and teacher. As Ollie—who is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns, and prefers art to athletics, vegetables to cake, and animals to most humans—flourishes in their new school, Rademacher is making an eye-opening adjustment to a new school of his own, one that’s whiter and more suburban than anywhere he has previously taught, with a history of racial tension that he tries to address and navigate.
While Ollie is learning to code, 3D model, animate, speak Japanese, and finally feel comfortable at school, Rademacher increasingly sees how his own educational struggles, anxieties, and childhood upbringing are reflected in his teaching, writing, and parenting, as well as in Ollie’s experience. And with this story of one anything-but-academic year of inquiry and wonder, doubt and revelation, he shows us how raising a kid changes everything—and how much raising a kid like Ollie can teach us about who we are and what we’re doing in the world.
$18.95 paper ISBN 978-1-5179-1173-7
200 pages, 5 b&w photos, 5 1/2 x 8 1/4, October 2021
Tom Rademacher is an eighth grade English teacher in the Minneapolis area. His book It Won’t Be Easy: An Exceedingly Honest (and Slightly Unprofessional) Love Letter to Teaching (Minnesota, 2017) was a finalist for a Minnesota Book Award. His writing has been published in Education Post, City Pages, MinnPost, and Huffington Post. In 2014 he was honored as Minnesota’s Teacher of the Year.
As vulnerable and honest a piece I’ve ever read from an educator, Tom Rademacher’s beautiful and conversational story ought to encourage more of us to dig deeper and reflect harder.
José Luis Vilson, educator, father, executive director of EduColor, and author of This Is Not A Test: A New Narrative on Race, Class, and Education
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Prairie Public NewsRoom: Interview with Tom Rademacher
Minnesota Reformer: A celebrated Minnesota teacher on raising his nonbinary child
Prairie Public NewsRoom: Interview with Tom Rademacher
Tom Rademacher is an English teacher and Minnesota’s Teacher of the Year in 2014. His new book, “Raising Ollie,” is the story of his nonbinary, art-obsessed child; a new school where Ollie could flourish; and how raising Ollie led the author into insights about himself.
Minnesota Reformer: A celebrated Minnesota teacher on raising his nonbinary child
I think people like that it’s not a how-to book about raising nonbinary kids. I recognize that Ollie doesn’t just sit around being nonbinary all day — that’s not all they do. The book includes stories about all different aspects of their childhood and what it’s meant raising them.