Ever wonder what a teacher does during summer break? I once saw a teacher from my high school delivering mail and wondered if he'd been fired. It didn't occur to me that because perhaps teachers were underpaid, they had to supplement their income during the summer instead of hanging out at the beach like we did.
The "crazy summer jobs" bullet point on the press release that came with Tales From the Teachers' Lounge (Delacorte, 307 pages, $25) by Robert Wilder is what made me pick up this book, which, frankly, I'm not sure what to make of...
Toward the end of the first chapter, Wilder writes about a kid's "potty mouth," but the author himself, within the first 10 pages, employs the following words: "groinage," scrotum-like, turd, shit, batty-ass, farted, bitch, fucker, crapping, ass, cock and balls. Way to set an example. I realize he's trying to be real, or funny, or maybe he just writes like he speaks, but I found it kind of offensive in the context he's presenting.
Wilder started out his working life in advertising in New York. Several years later, newly married, he packed up and moved to New Mexico, waited tables and fell into a teaching career. According to the press release, he "currently teaches high school in Santa Fe, where he is inspired daily."
Where there are funny stories throughout, I'm thinking that maybe this is a book for teachers only, because, for me, when Wilder tells his tales of teaching at various institutions, I'm not laughing so much as I'm cringing and thinking back to my own school days and what the teachers might have said about me behind the teachers' lounge doors!
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