It won't be easy : an exceedingly honest (and slightly unprofessional) love letter to teaching

It won't be easy An exceedingly honest (and slightly unprofessional) love letter to teaching

Tom Rademacher, 1981-

Book - 2017

Tom Rademacher wishes someone had handed him this sort of book along with his teaching degree: a clear-eyed, frank, boots-on-the ground account of what he was getting into. But first he had to write it. And as 2014's Minnesota Teacher of the Year, Rademacher knows what he's talking about. Less a how-to manual than a tribute to an impossible and impossibly rewarding profession, It Won't Be Easy captures the experience of teaching in all its messy glory. The book follows a year of teaching, with each chapter tackling a different aspect of the job. Pulling no punches (and resisting no punch lines), he writes about establishing yourself in a new building; teaching meaningful classes, keeping students a priority; investigating how... race, gender, and identity affect your work; and why it's a good idea to keep an extra pair of pants at school. Along the way he answers the inevitable and the unanticipated questions, from what to do with Google to how to tell if you're really a terrible teacher, to why "Keep your head down" might well be the worst advice for a new teacher.Though directed at prospective and newer teachers, It Won't Be Easy is short on jargon and long on practical wisdom, accessible to anyone -- teacher, student, parent, pundit -- who is interested in a behind-the-curtain look at teaching and willing to understand that, while there are no simple answers, there is power in learning to ask the right questions.

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Subjects
Rademacher, Tom, > 1981-
Teaching.
First year teachers.
Teachers > Minnesota > Biography.
Autobiographies.
Genres
Autobiographies
Published
Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press [2017]
Language
English
Main Author
Tom Rademacher, 1981- (author)
Other Authors
Dave Eggers (writer of foreword)
Item Description
Foreword copyrighted 2015.
Physical Description
xiii, 189 pages ; 22 cm
ISBN
9781517901127
  • Foreword
  • Introduction: The Rules
  • Part I. Summer
  • Welcome to the Shit Show
  • The Interview
  • Getting Along with Grown-ups
  • Crappy Job, Great Career
  • Part II. Fall
  • Extra Pants and Other Teacher Essentials
  • Watch Your Mouth
  • Fear, Anger, and Controlling a Classroom
  • So You Think You're a Terrible Teacher
  • Part III. Winter
  • The Goddamn Internet
  • The Worst Advice Ever
  • White-Guy Bullshit
  • When Kids Work for Change
  • Part IV. Spring
  • Give Your Room to the Kids
  • Liberal Racism, Racist Racism, and the Middle Road
  • When Bad Things Happen
  • I Quit
  • Part V. Summer, Again
  • Let Me Tell You about These Kids
Review by Booklist Review

Rademacher, an English teacher and contributor to websites EducationPost and MinnPost, was recognized as Minnesota's Teacher of the Year in 2014. Here he shares his experiences on the joys, challenges, and ironies of teaching. Rademacher does not hold back, and he challenges the reader's assumptions about new teachers throughout the book. He writes with wit and frankness about his teaching practices and various interactions with students, other teachers, and school administrators. Readers may feel occasionally discouraged to read about the plight of the current education system in America from Rademacher's perspective, but he also focuses on the positive, noble, and rewarding aspects of teaching and how uplifting it can be. He covers a variety of areas, like educational technology, diversity in the classroom, and changing behaviors among millennial and postmillennial students, and his honest, inspiring, and often humorous book will appeal to teachers, future teachers, and those interested in education.--Pun, Raymond Copyright 2017 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review

Rademacher, a blogger and 2014 recipient of Minnesota's Teacher of the Year Award, offers a series of lessons on what colleges of education don't teach, from what to expect from the first job interview to how to get along with cranky colleagues. This book contains no academic references and shies away from research and statistics. Instead, the reader gets lots of stories. The most affecting tales relate back to Rademacher's key themes: school can be unfair, especially to students who are struggling with personal and family problems; and compassion is the most essential element of quality teaching. While many of these narratives are studded with insights into the art of teaching, the author's avoidance of data trips the text up at times. (For example, when he tries to convince the reader that teachers are not underpaid after all.) Rademacher presents the teaching profession-warts and all-with an air of informality. His style will surely entertain some readers, but others may be put off by the frequent appearance of such turns of phrase as "and stuff" or "but whatever," as well as the meandering parenthetical asides. VERDICT Recommended only for academic libraries serving aspiring teachers at the undergraduate or graduate levels.-Seth Kershner, Northwestern Connecticut Community Coll. Lib., Winsted © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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