Confessions of a Bad Teacher
The Shocking Truth from the Front Lines of American Public Education
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Narrated by:
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James Killavey
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By:
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John Owens
About this listen
An explosive new look at the pressures on today's teachers and the pitfalls of school reform, Confessions of a Bad Teacher presents a passionate appeal to save public schools, before it's too late.
When John Owens left a lucrative job to teach English at a public school in New York City's South Bronx, he thought he could do some good. Faced with a flood of struggling students, Owens devised ingenious ways to engage every last one. But as his students began to thrive under his tutelage, Owens found himself increasingly mired in a broken educational system, driven by broken statistics, finances, and administrations undermining their own support system-the teachers.
The situation has gotten to the point where the phrase "Bad Teacher" is almost interchangeable with "Teacher". And Owens found himself labeled just that when the methods he saw inspiring his students didn't meet the reform mandates. With firsthand accounts from teachers across the country and tips for improving public schools, Confessions of a Bad Teacher is an eye-opening call-to-action to embrace our best educators and create real reform for our children's futures.
©2013 John Owens (P)2013 John OwensListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
We all have a lot to learn from the diary of a teacher named Esmé Raji Codell, an educator who has struggled to maintain individuality in the face of bureaucracy and whose defiant stand against mediocrity will reverberate in companies as well as classrooms everywhere.
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Excellent inspiration for educators....
- By S. Connolly on 08-05-03
By: Esme Raji Codell
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Teach Like Your Hair's On Fire
- By: Rafe Esquith
- Narrated by: James Yaegashi
- Length: 7 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Best-selling author Rafe Esquith, the only teacher to receive the National Medal of Arts, has garnered the American Teacher Award and numerous other honors. Still teaching fifth graders in a small, leaky classroom in downtown Los Angeles, Esquith fosters a wholesome climate where character, humility, and diligence matter and support is unconditional. For his mostly poor and Hispanic students, Esquith models two maxims: Be nice and work hard, and There are no shortcuts. And his students thrive!
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Inspiring even if not what it claims to be
- By Thomas Keeler on 11-14-10
By: Rafe Esquith
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The Prize
- Who's in Charge of America's Schools?
- By: Dale Russakoff
- Narrated by: Pete Cross
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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When Mark Zuckerberg announced in front of a cheering Oprah audience his $100 million pledge to transform the Newark Schools - and to solve the education crisis in every city in America - it looked like a huge win for then-mayor Cory Booker and governor Chris Christie. But their plans soon ran into a constituency not so easily moved - Newark's key education players, fiercely protective of their billion-dollar-per-annum system.
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Well-researched - Provides Good Answers
- By Denyse on 01-11-16
By: Dale Russakoff
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Tim Gunn: The Natty Professor
- A Master Class on Mentoring, Motivating and Making It Work!
- By: Tim Gunn, Ada Calhoun
- Narrated by: Tim Gunn
- Length: 5 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Tim Gunn, America's favorite reality TV cohost, is known for his kind but firm approach in providing wisdom, guidance, and support to the scores of design hopefuls on Project Runway. Having begun his fashion career as a teacher at Parsons The New School for Design, Tim knows more than a thing or two about mentorship and how to convey invaluable pearls of wisdom in an approachable, accessible manner.
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Life lessons for All
- By Trendy on 03-11-16
By: Tim Gunn, and others
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How Children Succeed
- Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character
- By: Paul Tough
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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The story we usually tell about childhood and success is the one about intelligence: success comes to those who score highest on tests, from preschool admissions to SATs. But in How Children Succeed, Paul Tough argues that the qualities that matter most have more to do with character: skills like perseverance, curiosity, conscientiousness, optimism, and self-control. How Children Succeed introduces us to a new generation of researchers and educators who, for the first time, are using the tools of science to peel back the mysteries of character.
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Article based on interviews
- By Anonymous User on 10-24-24
By: Paul Tough
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Class Warfare
- Inside the Fight to Fix America's Schools
- By: Steven Brill
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 16 hrs
- Unabridged
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In a reporting tour de force, award-winning journalist Steven Brill takes an uncompromising look at the adults who are fighting over America’s failure to educate its children and points the way to reversing that failure. Brill not only takes us inside their roller-coaster battles, he also concludes with a surprising prescription for what it will take from both sides to put the American dream back in America’s schools.
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Unions are Evil
- By Elton on 09-16-11
By: Steven Brill
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Savage Inequalities
- Children in America's Schools
- By: Jonathan Kozol
- Narrated by: Mark Winston
- Length: 8 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Jonathan Kozol traveled from the most blighted neighborhoods of Chicago to the urban wreckage of Camden, New Jersey; from the ghetto suburbs of Detroit to inner-city San Antonio; East St. Louis, and Washington, D.C. Everywhere, he discovered separate systems of public schools, with the children of America's poor condemned to schools that are underfunded, understaffed, physically crumbling, and imbued with despair.
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Excellent book for budding education professionals
- By Amazon Customer on 10-25-17
By: Jonathan Kozol
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Positive Discipline Tools for Teachers
- Effective Classroom Management for Social, Emotional, and Academic Success
- By: Jane Nelsen, Kelly Gfroerer
- Narrated by: Virginia Wolf
- Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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The positive discipline method has proved to be an invaluable resource for teachers who want to foster creative problem-solving within their students, giving them the behavioral skills they need to understand and process what they learn. Each tool is tailored specifically for the modern teacher, with examples and solutions to each and every roadblock that stands in the way of cooperative and student-centered learning.
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Good ideas but misleading
- By J. Frazier on 03-29-18
By: Jane Nelsen, and others
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The Global Achievement Gap
- Why Even Our Best Schools Don't Teach the New Survival Skills our Children Need - and What We Can Do About it
- By: Tony Wagner
- Narrated by: Paul Costanzo
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Education expert Tony Wagner situates our school problems in the context of the global knowledge economy and analyzes the skills necessary for our young people to succeed.
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made obsolete by 'MostLikelyToSucceed'-still great
- By MichaelS on 04-01-16
By: Tony Wagner
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Oddly Normal
- One Family's Struggle to Help Their Teenage Son Come to Terms with His Sexuality
- By: John Schwartz
- Narrated by: John Schwartz, Joseph Schwartz
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Three years ago, John Schwartz, a national correspondent for the New York Times, got the call that every parent hopes never to receive: His 13-year-old son, Joe, was in the hospital following a suicide attempt. Mustering the courage to come out to his classmates, Joe had delivered a tirade about homophobic and sexist attitudes that was greeted with unease and confusion by his fellow students. Hours later, he took an overdose of pills.
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The Effect of Parental Caring
- By Wiliam on 01-16-13
By: John Schwartz
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Lost at School
- Why Our Kids with Behavioral Challenges are Falling Through the Cracks and How We Can Help Them
- By: Ross W. Greene PhD
- Narrated by: Nick Podehl
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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School discipline is broken. Too often, the kids who need our help the most are viewed as disrespectful, out of control, and beyond help, and are often the recipients of our most ineffective, most punitive interventions. These students - and their parents, teachers, and administrators - are frustrated and desperate for answers. Dr. Ross W. Greene, author of the acclaimed book The Explosive Child, offers educators and parents a different framework for understanding challenging behavior.
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Interesting insights
- By AGrady on 07-11-16
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Troublemakers
- Lessons in Freedom from Young Children at School
- By: Carla Shalaby
- Narrated by: Luci Christian Bell
- Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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In this dazzling debut, Carla Shalaby, a former elementary school teacher, explores the everyday lives of four young "troublemakers", challenging the ways we identify and understand so-called problem children. Time and again, we make seemingly endless efforts to moderate, punish, and even medicate our children, when we should instead be concerned with transforming the very nature of our institutions, systems, and structures, large and small.
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Interesting and disturbing
- By Anonymous User on 07-27-18
By: Carla Shalaby
What listeners say about Confessions of a Bad Teacher
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- arthur patterson
- 08-20-16
Excellent
This book is an excellent and enlightening anecdotal account of teaching in America.
The audio performance is also great the performers voice conveys all the sarcasm and wit of the text.
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6 people found this helpful
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- E.W.
- 06-08-15
Worth reading but not worth listening to
Awful narrator - great story!! They would have done well to pick a different narrator - any narrator.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Deanna
- 08-07-16
Telling it like it is.
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Yes. People really need to understand how bad conditions can be.
What did you like best about this story?
I have been a teacher for 30 years. If you wonder what it's like to be a teacher should read this book. I've quoted a review of the print version below that I totally agree with.
Which character – as performed by James Killavey – was your favorite?
I thought the reader good but a couple of people did not and, in the "Days of Trump" it's not enough to say you don't like something. People have to go to extremes like...."Terrible, really terrible, Believe me, Believe me!." Sad but true. So I say..I think he's good but don't believe me..or them. Listen to the sample and decide for yourself.
Any additional comments?
"This book accurately describes my own experiences right down to the language used
by the students and the pettiness of the administration. The central message of the book,
according to my biased view as a teacher, is that teachers should be supported financially
(dedicated teachers are spending thousands of their own dollars for classroom supplies
and demonstration apparatus), logistically (removal of knuckleheads from class), and emotionally (regarded with the esteem they deserve). I could recite my own litany of abuse by assistant principals, extreme behavior problems, too many kids with special needs and not enough time, but John Owens has already described my experience with remarkable accuracy. I realize now that this is not just a local problem, but a systemic one pervading school systems across the nation. Education reform has relieved students of responsibility for their own education and placed it all on the teacher. Thirty percent of the school year is consumed by preparing for and taking high-stakes tests. Education reform is the worst thing to ever happen to education. Teachers should be supported and appreciated. Education reform is a big part of the problem, good teachers hold the key to the solution. We should listen to them. Thank you John Owens for stating our case so well!"
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9 people found this helpful
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- Lei
- 01-07-18
Enjoyed every single chapter, metaphor, and pun.
The narrator did an amazing job. Absolutely perfect narration to emphasize the sarcasm and humor in the absurdities of public education. THANK YOU Mr. Owens for putting into eloquent words, everything I have been through as a new teacher. I greatly appreciate every anecdotal detail.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Alanna
- 03-28-17
Interesting ideas on educational reform
I enjoyed the book, and loved the anecdotes. So much is similar to that experienced daily by teachers in the UK.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall
- Dawn Nelson
- 12-31-15
OK???????
Great story but the narrator? Even I could have don't a way better job of doing the narrator part! He was talking about a different story and then James Killavey went back to the story. Waste of my time! UUUUUUUGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!❕❕❕❕❕
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1 person found this helpful