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shirleytupperfreeman's review
Garret Keizer is a wonderful writer and seems to be a creative and dedicated teacher. This book is an account of his year of teaching high school English after a 14 year hiatus from his teaching career. His stories of the day-to-day work involved in teaching were instructive and somehow both depressing and inspirational. I'm guessing that's the way it feels to many teachers - both miserable and joyful depending on the moment. Teaching isn't for the faint of heart but this book will expand your heart - as all good books should.
margaretefg's review
3.0
I really enjoyed this memoir of a year back in the classroom. The descriptions of how much the author thinks and rethinks and relives interactions with students and how grueling that can become are a good reflection of my experience as a teacher. I hadn't thought of it that way. He is also very thoughtful about all the people he meets, respectful where he could be patronizing. A lovely book.
tkadlec's review
5.0
After a 15 year absence Keizer returns to teaching for one year and, thanks to this book, we get to follow along. The result is an insightful look at modern day teaching that is both humorous at times, and depressing at others.
prof_shoff's review
3.0
The subject matter was interesting, of course, and pieces of it were rather thought-provoking but the author is too overwrought for me.
allisonka221's review
4.0
3.5 Keizer gives us the other side of the desk, and crafts a rich auto-ethnography of his mercurial attitudes toward teaching. It made me reflect on my high school experience and gave me empathy for my teachers where before there were flat shades of fondness, admiration, or dislike. The book is divided into months, which also makes the reader count down to June along with the author. Artfully, perhaps, we feel the tiredness of marginalized American public schools, and one leaves the book with an uneasy mix of existential acceptance and righteous anger for having let down the young.
bookworm247's review
4.0
Great teaching advice! But it seems that Keizer is not as enthusiastic at teaching as i would hope he would be.
debnanceatreaderbuzz's review
5.0
Keizer is my brother in education. He, like me, started teaching long, long ago. He, like me, is a hearty proponent of a rigorous education. He, like me, left education for many years to pursue other things. He, like me, returned to education after a long hiatus to find things had both changed and remained the same.
I loved this little memoir of the year he spent back in the classroom. It was lovely and painful to see his clear look at students today. The images and quotes he put up on the walls of his classroom that were never commented on by the students. Disturbing and yet something that I, too, have observed, something that I, too, don’t quite understand. The strength of students in light of the troubles they face at home. The disappointments of a teacher who hopes for more from his students and the occasional unexpected triumphs of a teacher with a lesson that resonates with the classes.
(I have only one criticism; had I been his editor, I’d have asked Keizer to soften his diatribes against American capitalism as I found these to be a little annoying in light of his subject.)
Recommended.
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