Two Legs Suffice: Lessons Learned by Teaching

By John J. Viall

Book Overview

What happens when you turn a former Marine loose in a classroom filled with seventh and eighth grade students? Two Legs Suffice takes us into an ordinary classroom in an ordinary middle school in Loveland, Ohio and introduces us to young men and women of every color, shape and size imaginable. What's it like to work with 5,000 teens? How does a teacher push Todd to excel, a young man who goes on to Harvard Law School, while addressing the needs of Jen, who lives in squalor at home, with a dead dog in the family bathtub? Teaching might sound easy when you're dealing with Erin, who comes from a broken home, but studies six hours for the first essay test she' s ever taken, or Tom, a Vietnamese teen fresh off the boat," determined to succeed. It can be a hundred times more challenging when you're trying to save Rick, who brings a gun to school to shoot people, or the girl with curly black hair, who is being abused by her father and brother. By turns funny, moving, sad and passionate, Viall explains what it's like to survive and thrive in a world inhabited by teens. Finally, he guides us down a "secret" path that leads to enhanced learning in any classroom-following a route that should be no secret at all.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1512272728
• ISBN13: 9781512272727
• Release Date: July 2015
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 382 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.9" x 6.0"