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

By Robert Wilder

Book Overview

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 experiment 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.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385339283
• ISBN13: 9780385339285
• Release Date: August 2008
• Publisher: Delta
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Laugh out loud funny

I have been considering entering the educational field and bought this book because it appeared to be a humorous but serious look into some of the more personal aspects of teaching. The volume did not disappoint! I don't read this one at work any more due to large outburst of laughing. While the language is intense, the imagery it gives in hilarious. A gold star in my book!

I loved this book!

This book was more helpful to me than the last five years of inservice combined. It is so refreshing to know that there are other dedicated teachers who get frustrated with students, administrators, parents, and above all, themselves and are still able to maintain a sense of humor! Buy this book!

Everyone can relate

I think anyone who has a sense of humor and the capacity for not taking life TOO seriously can relate to this book! The essays in this book are spot-on funny, and yes, irreverent, as the title states. If you want to remember what it was like to slink through the halls of learning in a constant state of fear/embarrassment; want a handle on school from a teacher's perspective; or just want a good belly laugh -this book is for you!

Skewered

Rob Wilder has a wicked pen. He skewers everyone--students, teachers, friends, family, and above all himself--with a biting sarcasm, but also with grace and humor. Reading him, you have the feeling that if he got ahold of you, he'd show all your foibles, but it wouldn't really sting. He'd have you dead to rights, and all you could do would be laugh. That and moan perhaps, at Wilder's exposure of the educational and social subtleties of the classroom, the underbelly of today's schools. "Never give a Wilder a microphone or a podium," the author says. "Like an infomercial, we'll be on all night." That's fine with me, because I'll be up laughing. Wilder outdoes himself with his versions of student retellings of books often taught in high school: The Great Gatsby, Hamlet, Song of Myself, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, and others. Brilliant. I wish, in the tenth grade, I'd had a teacher half as devoted, humane and funny as Rob Wilder.

Tales From The Teachers' Lounge

Rob Wilder's latest book is an up-close look at the life of a school teacher. Very funny and at times very poignant, Tales . . . tells us much about Wilder's own experiences in the classroom and about that rare mix of humor, drama, knowledge of one's subject matter, and love of kids that makes a great teacher. I recommend it highly!