Losing My Faculties

A Teacher's Story

By Halpin, Brendan

Publishers Summary:
I am just one of those rare and probably defective people who really enjoy the company of teenagers.Brendan Halpin’s It Takes a Worried Man—a memoir of how he and his family dealt with his wife’s battle against breast cancer—was praised for its can-dor, raw humor, and riveting voice. Halpin now turns his unique talent to an unforgettable account of the pursuit of his true calling: teaching.Losing My Faculties follows Halpin through teaching jobs in an economically depressed white ethnic town, a middle-class suburb, a last-chance truancy prevention program in the inner city, and an ambitious college-prep urban charter school. In the same cuttingly observant voice that marked It Takes a Worried Man, Halpin tells us what it really means to be a teacher—the ups and downs in the classroom, the battles with administrators and colleagues, and the joy of doing a job that matters. Not the tale of a hero who changes his troubled students’ lives in one year, Losing My Faculties is, rather, the story of an all-too-fallible teacher who persists in spite of the frustrations that have driven so many others from the profession. After nine years of teaching, Halpin finds his idealism in shreds but his sense of humor and love for his work blessedly intact.

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ISBN
978-1-40006-083-2
Publisher
Villard


REVIEWS

Library Journal

Reviewed on August 1, 2003

Those familiar with Halpin's acclaimed memoir, It Takes a Worried Man, will recognize the frankness, honesty, and sense of humor displayed here. But this time, instead of dealing with his wife's battle with breast cancer, Halpin focuses on the experience of being a high school teacher. Still a teaching English in Boston, Halpin recounts the early days of his career and d...Log In or Sign Up to Read More

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