My First Year In Purgatory

"My First Year In Purgatory" is a teacher memoir with illustrations, about my adventures and insights as a Gen Xer teaching in a crumbling urban school district. In it, I lead two semi-functional lives: embattled educator by day –whose students make Damien from the “Omen” look like a lightweight, and urban adventurer by night. I witness teachers driven out of classrooms by students they can’t control, bullies given free reign to torment the weak, chaos that makes learning nearly impossible, and administrators who sweep discipline under the rug. Weekends, I scour art openings, cafes, bars and the Internet for romance, meaning, and escape. As I struggle through my first year, I begin to suspect that that all those movies and books about the “dedicated teacher who won over those tough kids” are a myth; and that there is a crisis in discipline that can’t be solved by lone heroes.