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

by Tom Rademacher
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

by Tom Rademacher

Paperback

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Overview

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 mercifully 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.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781517901127
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Publication date: 04/25/2017
Pages: 192
Sales rank: 417,396
Product dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Tom Rademacher is an English teacher in Minneapolis. His writing has appeared in EdPost, MinnPost, and on his blog, Mr. Rad’s Neighborhood, and he speaks about teaching at universities, conferences, and TEDx events. In 2014 he was honored as Minnesota’s Teacher of the Year.

Dave Eggers is author of ten books, including, most recently, Heroes of the Frontier. He is the founder of McSweeney’s, an independent publishing house in San Francisco, California, and cofounder of 826 National, a network of eight tutoring centers around the country. 

Table of Contents

Contents
Foreword
Dave Eggers
Introduction: The Rules
Part I. Summer
Welcome to the Shitshow
The Interview
Getting Along with Grownups
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
Index

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