Confessions of a Bad Teacher: the Shocking Truth from the Front Lines of American Public Education

by John Owens
Hennepin County Library paperback 241 pages
genre: non-fiction expose'

I need to start off by saying that some of this resonated with me but most of all, I was appalled. He taught for less than one full school year and he takes it upon himself to write this? If it were written as a memoir, telling his story of his life and this chapter in it, the book would work. "The shocking truth from the front lines" is a bit much. He was in one school for less than one year. He saw and talked to some other teachers who taught in other schools (also in NYC). Whatever.

My favorite parts were the specific stories of students (names changed, of course) and the actual messages from his administrators. Poor guy definitely had a tough situation! But then, he left a publishing career to get a teaching license to try to make a difference in the lives of kids who need more. Admirable!

page xiv - as he's going on about "if I were a good teacher . . . " in each situation, I thought of how it definitely feels as though teachers are expected to handle many, many different kinds of kids and situations (many beyond our control) with expertise. ". . . each lesson every day would be tailored to each of my 125 students' individual needs - targeting every gradation between illiterate and near-college - and revised constantly." Yep. That's pretty much what we're expected to do.

page 5 - Time and the demands on teachers . . . so true. And people just don't get it. "After climbing the corporate ladder and having had teenage jobs cleaning ovens and scooping dog poop, I can honestly say that I've never had a worse, more demoralizing, more enervating job than teaching at Latinate Institute. Every second of the day was filled with demands and - sadly - students whose needs still weren't being addressed despite all the efforts I could put in."

pages 102-3 - Classroom management. Yep. It's tough! I love his analogy to Cesar the Dog Whisperer. Funny! I wish it were something that were easier to learn. "From what I could see, classroom management skills come with experience." Yes, they do.

pages 120 - the school hugging phenomenon . . . I know what I've seen, but I didn't realize that it had become such an issue! The Today Show, the New York Times, sociologists studying it . . . Perhaps it's just not as big a problem in the Midwest. "In schools, widespread hugging can, at best, be a time-wasting hallway-snarler, at worst, it can become aggressive physical contact and harassment." Interesting!

page 131 - access to a school library . . . sigh. What a difference for the students in the two "small" high schools housed in one building. He sited a crowd-sourced Google Map "A Nation without School Libraries" . . . disheartening.

pages 186-7 - Voice of Mr. X, second grade teacher in southwest Florida . . . this type of anecdote gave more credence to Mr. Owens' account. Some of the issues and concerns he raised certainly are widespread. There are some real horror stories of good teachers treated as though they are deficient. "In my district here in southwestern Florida, 50 percent of my final evaluation for the year will be based upon the test scores of children in grades four and five. I taught second grade this year. This is my first year at this school. So, in effect, half of my effectiveness as a teacher is to be determined by test scores from students I've never taught and most of whom I've never even met."

pages 204-5 One of my pet peeves when we talk about education and accountability is the lack of stress on the impact of kids' home lives. Parents truly are a child's first and most important teachers! Poverty has more of an impact on educational success than any other factor! Teachers can't fix this.

page 218 - "I believe that America should return to the notion of teaching as a long-term career and recognize that the first few years really are an apprenticeship, and as such, new teachers should be matched with veteran teachers who are eager and able to serve as mentor-coaches."  That's what a lot of us already do . . . perhaps the Midwest is better about mentoring and supporting new teachers than NYC?