Too Dangerous to Teach is a poignant, sometimes funny, often infuriating story of survival in a National School of Excellence where politics, unethical business practices and betrayals mark a veteran teacher too dangerous to teach.
370 pages; TRAFFORD catalogue #03-0645; ISBN 1-4120-0276-1 US$25.49
Readers will laugh, cry and rage as Elizabeth Feinman, passionate about her job, students, union leadership role and the issues of the day, tumbles from grace the more deeply involved she gets in trying to make each better.
Set in a junior-senior high school in the nineties, this story reveals what passes for standards and discipline and how a school administration, eager for national attention, can cook the books, shut down criticism, avoid critical evaluation and rid itself of whomever it cares to. The narrative, which spans four decades, touches on raising the mantel for women, introducing sports to girls and adapting to societal changes. It then follows a school district's efforts to rid itself of a thorn in its side.
As Ms. Feinman stands up to career ending challenges, readers will no longer believe that teaching is easy; that teachers don't care; that top-down management improves what goes on in classrooms; that tenure protects teachers; and that wonderful teachers really don't need professional associations to protect them from the whims of school administrators.
HOW TO ORDER WHAT READERS ARE SAYING A FULL REVIEW EXCERPTS ABOUT THE AUTHOR