Netgalley Review: Teacher Misery

Teacher Misery perfectly encapsulates the comical misery that has become the teaching profession. Morris’ strange, funny, and sometimes unbelievable teaching experiences are told through a collection of short stories, essays and artifacts including real emails from parents, students and administrators. From the parents who blame their son’s act of arson on the teacher for causing him low self-esteem, to the student who offers to teach the teacher how to sell drugs so she can pay her bills, to the administrator whose best advice is to “treat kids like sacks of shit,” one story is more shocking than the next. An important read for teachers and non-teachers alike-- Teacher Misery paints an amusing and thoroughly entertaining picture of what has become of our education system, without detracting from the overall point that what teachers have to put up with today is complete, utter, unacceptable insanity. 



My Review:

Reading this book was entertaining, but I feel the book could have been handled better. I did chuckle at some of the fake names the author came up with, and shook my head at the antics of wild students. But in tell-alls like this, it's easy to become caught up in your own jaded perspective and forget the positives. There were some neutral things in there-- the occasional email that was not angering but not quite funny either. But what would have been awesome is a whole chapter on good experiences, instead of fitting in "oh yeah I had these two students who thanked me once" squeezed in at the end of the book. 
The book definitely does justice to the title, but with so much negativity I'm not sure it's the healthiest thing to read. Reading nothing but ranting and judgments about other people has the possibility of influencing you to be that negative person who can't give anyone the benefit of doubt. 
I would curb who I recommend this book to based solely on how I think it will negatively impact their perspective on people around them. But, for being entertaining and giving me something to talk about with my educator mother, I'll rate this a 3.5/5 (what is that, a c+?)