A workplace novel that captures teaching with insight, humor, and heart. This perspective-hopping debut follows teachers at an urban high school as their professional lives impact their personal lives and vice versa.Each year brings familiar educational challenges to Brae Hill Valley, a struggling high school in one of Texas’s bigger cities. But the school’s teachersface plenty of challenges of … school’s teachersface plenty of challenges of their own. English teacher Lena Wright, aspoken-word poet with a deep love for her roots, can never seem tosatisfy her students that she’s for real. Hernan D. Hernandez isconfident in front of his biology classes, yet tongue-tied aroundthewoman he most wants to impress: namely, Lena. Down the hall, mathteacher Maybelline Galang focuses on the numbers as she blocks outproblems whose solutions aren’t so clear, while Coach Ray hustles hisfootball team toward another winning season, at least on the field.Recording it all is idealistic history teacher Kaytee Mahoney, whoseblog gains new readers by the day but drifts ever further from herin-class reality.
And this year, a new celebritysuperintendent is determined to leave his own mark on the school–evenif that means shutting the whole place down. The fallout will shake upthe teachers’ lives both inside and outside the classroom.
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“Adequate Yearly Progress” by Roxanna Elden, Atria paperback, New York, 2018
This is the laugh-out-loud book for you if advocates of simplistic solutions for complex problems give you an ulcer and arrogant consultants armed with psychobabble instead of experience turn your stomach. Three teachers and a principal struggle to make a difference in a Texas high school after the school board hires an opinionated superintendent with no educational experience. The jerk has convinced the voters that he alone can save the schools. The teachers must work around the obstacles he throws in their way, but they aren’t pure. They make mistakes. But at least the good ones recognize and regret them. You’ll cringe at officialdom’s stupidity as often as you laugh, and you’ll laugh a lot.
Lean on Me meets The Office. I do not have the educational background to fully appreciate all the nuances, but the meaning was conveyed well nonetheless. Teachers are measured by their student’s progress while at the same time, expected to come across the numbers in specific, prescribed ways. I enjoyed the inside look of how both teachers and students find themselves desperate to be seen and heard.
I really enjoyed this novel, mostly for the fact that I could relate to the teachers. If anyone wants to know what teachers go through, I highly suggest to pick up this book.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t a big fan of it. Despite relating to the characters as teachers, I didn’t care for their personal life–I was indifferent through it all. I tried to connect with them, but I just didn’t care for them.
I expected more teaching dynamics, where teachers bounded together to fight this system against them, but in turn, I got a lot of the teachers’ love life, an assistant banding up against the principal and another teacher. I believe if the book had focused on Kaytee, one of the newer teachers and the other teachers trying to help her out, giving their own tips, this book would have been more to my liking.
Also, this book had a lot of point of views. It was a surprise I didn’t get lost, since the author was able to give a unique voice to each character, but at the same time, it made it seem all over the place. There were a lot of topics and what should have been the focus of the story ended up being brushed off.
Overall, Adequate Yearly Progress is an eye-opener on the teaching field. I loved that I got a few tips on teaching from it, and was able to see how I should be grateful of the school I work at and the students I have because it’s not like I have it anywhere else.
Meant to be a satire about education, this book was also a realistic look at what the teachers have to go through because of the current emphasis on testing. The teachers were likable and the author portrayed each of them with a life outside of teaching and Brae Hill Valley High School. My favorite teacher was Hernan, a biology teacher with integrity, hard to find in today’s world, much less in today’s schools. My least favorite was Mr. Scamphers, the assistant principal who was intent to climb the mountain of promotion over the backs of his colleagues. I also liked Dr. Barrios, the much-maligned and much misunderstood principal of the high school. As a retired teacher, I could identify with many of the challenges the teachers faced, like fights in the classroom and students out of control during an observation. I most appreciated the realistic look at the teachers being required to keep binders and data while the students just seemed to exist in a world that does not focus on education but instead on numbers, rewarding those who can crunch them best. I would have given the book five stars, but the ending seemed rushed, with everything tied up in a bow, but it was just too fast for me, not seeming to build up as I thought it should have. Fans for literature in general will enjoy this book, but I think it was written for the millions of teachers in the world who are doing their best and being little appreciated for their efforts.
Disclaimer
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary copy of this book via #AtriaBooks from a contest on #Goodreads. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255, “Guides Concerning the Use of Testimonials and Endorsements in Advertising.”