Publisher's Synopsis
What it is Like to Teach in Failing Schools is one of the most powerful and candid accounts of teaching ever put in print, and a searing expose of the widespread violence and psychological abuse of teachers in failing schools. In 2006, A. Teacher stepped into the urban jungle of Atlanta public schools, an inexperienced teacher in charge of hundreds of students. A. Teacher was not trained for the task assigned to him, and, as he soon found out, was completely unprepared for the war-like conditions he would encounter at Fairfield Junior Academy - an epicenter of poverty and crime. In his ten years of teaching in failing schools he experienced intense traumatization. He saved a 13 year old girl from a gang rape. He watched kids beat each other to pulp. A large number of his former students graduated into "street college" - prison. The experience caused his marriage to fail. A. Teacher survived the ordeal determined to expose the blood, the stress, the broken lives, and the truth behind teaching in failing schools today. In What it is Like to Teach in Failing Schools, A. Teacher interlaces riveting accounts of his teaching experience with research, analysis and intensive study - from Machiavelli to Linda Darling-Hammond. A. Teacher's book is required reading for anyone interested in this sordid and abusive aspect of human life. It is the story of A. Teacher.
