Woodland Hills High School was thrilled to welcome author Benjamin Herold and Bethany Smith on Tuesday, September 24 for the first Woodland Hills Interaction Series event of the year. Benjamin Herold is an award-winning journalist who has written extensively on education and whose features and investigative stories appeared regularly in Education Week magazine.
A Penn Hills native, Herold was drawn back to the region to report on his alma mater as part of a wider look at the American Dream and the shifting ground beneath American suburbs. The end result is "Disillusioned," a book that has been widely praised for its ability to chronicle how aging suburbs outside of Pittsburgh, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, and Los Angeles exhausted resources and have left new families with fewer opportunities. The book tackles difficult issues like racial equity, gentrification, financial mismanagement, and much more.
Bethany Smith is one of Herold's subjects in the book. Her experience was so central to the book that she ended up writing the epilogue.
Students read and analyzed the book and came prepared with questions for Herold and Smith. The two spoke with the students about some of the key messages in the book, as well as some lessons they've learned themselves in being part of the project.
Students asked questions about Herold's reporting and research process, as well as about his technique to write a compelling story. Smith shared some of her hesitation about having Herold tell her story and her family's story, as well as how Herold's response to her concerns eventually led to her writing the epilogue.
Herold and Smith also graciously chatted with students one-on-one and signed copies of the book.