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Ms. Moffat's First Year:Becoming a Teacher in America
by Abby Goodnough
The joys and heartbreaks of teaching
‘Ms. Moffat's First Year’ is based on a series of articles originally written for the New York Times about a first year teacher in a low-income New York school. Under a new program instituted to attract older, more experienced professionals to teaching, Ms. Moffat leaves her position as a legal secretary, and undertakes the extreme challenge of being a first-grade teacher.
The story is told in such a compelling way -- making the reader feel as if they too are suffering under the political motivations of superiors, or enjoying the rare moment when a lesson goes exactly according to plan. What really makes this book so powerful is its realistic perspective. The author doesn't shy away from documenting the downfalls of teaching, like so many in her place might. She makes sure that you know how hard it can be to be calm and collected when kids in your care are howling or crying or crawling, and that sometimes you just can't manage to be unruffled. She also shows how disheartening it can be—not to have the time or resources to help the children who need it most; not to receive administrative advice or support; and then to get hit by one cold after another, one infection after another. Few of Ms. Moffat's peers actually make it through their first year, and even fewer decide to return the next year.
But Goodnough doesn't just end with the negatives that surround teaching. She leaves you with some hope: While Ms. Moffat finds her first year "disillusioning, frustrating and betraying," she also makes it through the year and decides to come back again the next year. She talks about how she bonded with some of the kids, and feels lost at the end of the year. In spite of all the difficulties, she wonders what will happen to these kids to whom she became so close—with whom she spent more time than she did with her own family. She talks about the importance of teacher mentoring, and of things you can't learn until you are there, in the classroom, trying to make them work.
Goodnough also uses this opportunity to discuss policies —national, state, district, and school-wide —that need to be reformed in order to help all our students. She talks about the various philosophies of education, and how they often change from administration to administration, often leaving teachers and students playing catch-up. She has you wondering if "no child left behind" is even possible, given our system's current state.
Perhaps what is most important here is that this series of articles about teaching holds nothing back. It's all there--the challenges, joys, triumphs, and losses of facing a room full of 20-30 children whose education and care are your responsibility. You’ll be reminded that the real goal of any teacher is "making sure that 20 lives got off to a good, fair start, and hoping that she had not messed up too badly." This book is for anyone interested in American education today.
Title: Ms. Moffat's First Year:Becoming a Teacher in America
Author: Abby Goodnough
Publisher: Public Affairs
ISBN: 1586482559
Review written by: Melissa McLaughlin
Reviewer's Rating:8.5
Reader's Rating: 0
Reader's Votes: 0
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