Tales from the Teachers' Lounge: What I Learned in School the Second Time Around-one Man's Irreverent Look at Being a Teacher Today Reprint edition

From the critically acclaimed author of Daddy Needs a Drink?hailed by the Los Angeles Times as ?consistently hilarious??comes a series of irreverent, wickedly observant essays about what it really means to be a teacher today. With his trademark wit and wisdom, Robert Wilder dissects the world?s noblest profession?whether he?s taming a classroom full of hormonal teenagers or going one-on-one with the school bully.

Wilder was twenty-six when he found his true calling. Leaving a lucrative advertising career in New York, he got a job as an assistant first-grade teacher at a Santa Fe alternative school?and never looked back. Now he brings his unique perspective?as a teacher, parent, and former student?to a series of laugh-out-loud essays that show teaching at its most absurd?and most rewarding. With brutal candor he chronicles his own lively adventures in modern education, from navigating cutthroat kindergarten sign-ups to subbing for a class experi-ment gone wrong?and dares to tell about it.

He shares the surprising lessons he?s learned in the trenches of his profession, including how to bribe a four-year-old (his own) to stop swearing in a Lutheran preschool and the best way to teach moody teenagers?manage ?helicopter? parents?and cope with bullies?whether of the school-yard, Internet, or parental kind. And he offers tough love for cheaters who log on to www. SchoolSucks.com, then puts to rest forever the question of why new teachers gain weight (hint: the free donuts don?t help).

In Tales from the Teachers? Lounge, Robert Wilder charts life?s learning curve with a warmth and humor you don?t find in textbooks. By turns heartwarming, eye-opening, and uproariously funny, these pitch-perfect essays offer priceless lessons in life, family, learning, and teaching from a true lover of education.


From the Hardcover edition.