This hilarious and candid collection of personal essays about teaching
follows in the footsteps of such classics as Teach Like Your Hair's on
Fire, The Courage to Teach, and Up the Down Staircase. "Send this
book to your favorite teacher. They'll know you're sucking up. They'll
thank you anyway" (People).
Shannon Reed did not want to be a teacher, but now, after twenty years
of working with children from preschool to college, there's nothing
she'd rather be. "With an irresistible combination of compassion, humor,
and engaged storytelling" (Shelf Awareness), her essays illuminate the
highs and lows of a job located at the intersection of youth and wisdom.
Bringing you into the trenches of this most important and stressful
career, she rolls her eyes at ineffectual administrators, weeps with her
students when they experience personal tragedies, complains with her
colleagues about their ridiculously short lunchbreaks, and presents the
parent-teacher conference from the other side of the tiny table.
From dealing with bullies and working with special needs students to
explaining the unwritten rules of the teacher's lounge this "starkly
honest, at times irreverent" (Library Journal) look at teaching is
full of as much humor and heart as the job it celebrates.
