Author
KELLY FLYNN
The Teachers' Lounge (Uncensored)
Teachers step to the front of the classroom every day and do their darnedest to capture their student’s attention and keep it. But so many things get in the way: unruly kids, disagreeable parents, homes so broken it is beyond imagining, bureaucracy and red tape, the influence of technology and the media, a culture that celebrates misguided values, and most intrusively, government regulations that purport to improve teaching and learning, but in fact, are destroying it.
The Teachers’ Lounge (Uncensored) gives you a peek inside that classroom. Kelly Flynn takes readers by the hand and says, “Come inside my school, walk a mile in my halls, and then we’ll talk about education reform.” With breathtaking clarity and a healthy dose of humor Kelly Flynn shares with readers what all teachers know; that when you teach in a public school there are days that you laugh, days that you cry, and days that you laugh until you cry.
JUST RELEASED
Author Kelly Flynn describes the exasperation and exhilaration of life in the classroom in her new book
PRAISE FOR The Teachers' Lounge (Uncensored)
“An inconvenient reality check for policy makers, an insightful tale for outsiders, and a hopeful message for all, Kelly Flynn reports from the school, where learning happens (and sometimes doesn’t). Flynn’s stories show what matters, who cares, and why reform policies from government offices don’t work and test scores are not the right goal of education. This is a must read for all interested in improving education and concerned about America’s future.”
-- Yong Zhao, Professor, University of Oregon and author of World Class Learners: Educating Creative and Entrepreneurial Students
“Every teacher should give a copy of this book to the mayor, to the school board, and to political representatives. It will astonish them and maybe increase their humility quotient. Written from inside classrooms, it is real. It is also fast-moving, funny, poignant, occasionally shocking. Most important, the book is also hopeful, showing that whatever her successes and failures, every year, every class, every lesson, every student, the teacher comes back, certain she can do it better.”
-- Susan Ohanian, author of What Happened to Recess and Why Are Our Children Struggling in Kindergarten?
“This delightful—but profound—book will ring teachers’ chimes. The vignettes and Flynn’s on-target observations are gritty and full of the kind of wisdom that can only be earned by years in the classroom and an eye for truth. She has the ability to take an unremarkable incident in the hallway or classroom and deftly turn it into a nugget of perception about kids, parents or our entire education system.”
-- Nancy Flanagan, Education Consultant, “Teacher in a Strange Land” blog at Education Week
“Kelly Flynn's book takes us inside our most challenging schools, and shows us the sometimes exasperating, sometimes exhilarating world students and teachers inhabit every day. Her detailed stories help reveal the flaws in the quick fixes, and help us understand what teaching is all about.”
-- Anthony Cody, author, “Living in Dialogue” blog at Education Week
“Kelly Flynn is a powerhouse and must have been a great classroom teacher. I would have loved to work with her when I taught high school. Kelly always keeps her ‘eyes on the prize,’ the ability of teachers to influence the lives of their students. What is best about this book is that she is able to remain positive and hopeful about teaching despite all the difficulties of the job and the political and corporate assault on public schools, students, and especially teachers. I want to thank Kelly for reminding me why we chose to teach.”
-- Alan Singer, Hofstra University
“The media needs to spend time in the classroom and see what a teacher is up against today and tell that story without equivocation. This is what Kelly Flynn is writing about.”
-- Frosty Troy, founder and editor of The Oklahoma Observer
"The Teachers’ Lounge (Uncensored): A Funny, Edgy, Poignant Look at Life in the Classroom, written by Kelly Flynn, will make you laugh, cry, ponder, and stomp—in no particular order. Flynn blurts out what every public educator has been dying to say but has not had anyone ask."
-- The Delta Kappa Gamma Bulletin, International Journal for Professional Educators
"With candor and humor, Kelly Flynn courageously tells the absurd-but-true stories from the public school classroom. Readers will come away understanding that teachers do what they do not for the merit pay or ‘summers off,’ but out of a profound sense of purpose, a commitment to education, and love.”
-- Eileen Button, author of The Waiting Place: Learning to Appreciate Life's Little Delays
"Flynn has a gift for presenting the annoyances and failures of modern education in a light-hearted and understanding way. She shows you what is wrong and how it might be fixed, without sermonizing."
-- Jay Mathews, Washington Post education columnist and author of New York Times bestseller, Work Hard. Be Nice.
"Thank you, Kelly Flynn. Told from the inside out she captures what makes being a teacher so compelling as well as what drives us mad, the humorous as well as the tragic. She reminds me of why I miss it."
-- Deborah Meier, author of In Schools We Trust: Creating Communities of Learning in an Era of Testing and Standardization and "Bridging Differences" blog at Education Week
Foreword by
Nancy Carlsson-Paige is Professor Emerita at Lesley University where she taught teachers for more than 30 years and was a founder of the University’s Center for Peaceable Schools. A strong advocate for public education, Nancy works with other education activists for the rights of all children to a quality education. Nancy has authored five books and numerous articles and op eds. She is an advocate for education that promotes social justice and the well being of all children.
"Kelly Flynn’s book, rich with essays about real schools--about teachers, students and the issues they live with--reminds us of what we have lost sight of in recent years: schools are for learning academic skills, but they are also places where we learn to live together in a human community."
