So I picked up a book titled "Teacher Misery: Helicopter Parents, Special Snowflakes & Other BS" by Jane Morris.
The book is basically a series of anecdotes about dealing with the current crop of bad students.
Before I get into my opinion of this book, let me first say this: My dad taught middle-school for 43 years. For most of my life, I had a view into what was happening on my school system that few other students had. I know that being a teacher (especially one that wants to be a good one) is a frustrating, tiring and thankless job.
If you take the book as just a series of stories about stupid students and their parents (sort of like watching the car crash videos on YouTube), it's a pretty enjoyable read. But I would expect most people don't like schadenfreude.
But what was distasteful to me was the whining - from the teachers.
Every, and I mean every, problem in the stories has its root cause in the public education system. The poor teachers, who can't be fired. The poor administrators who won't discipline problem students.
Of course, you will say "but isn't some of this caused by poor parents?" And you are correct. But I will argue that those poor parents became poor parents due to the broken public education system.
One of the stories was about a couple of students who "identified" with animals. The teacher telling the story wanted to not laugh at them, but that's exactly what should have been done (short of bullying). Instead they humored them, reinforcing this moronic idea.
So Teacher Misery is a well written book and I would recommend it.
If you are like me and have strong beliefs about how our public education is failing, this book may be painful to read.
