John Owens is an award-winning travel journalist, author, editor and photographer based in Vero Beach, Florida. His new book, Chickens Are Not Pets, Kid’s-Eye View of the Shattered American Dream, is a brutally honest and soul-baring celebration of childhood. This collection of stories is a hilarious, insightful flashback packed with joyfully offbeat characters and you-can't-make-this-up experiences. Chickens Are Not Pets grew out of his work as an 8th and 9th grade public school English teacher. One of the exercises most popular with his students was Writing Your Life; students eagerly captured colorful stories about growing up. This book resulted from John doing exactly that. When John Owens left a lucrative publishing job to teach English at a public school in New York City's South Bronx, he thought he could do some good. Instead, he found an educational maelstrom that robs students of real learning to improve the school's statistics at any cost, even demonizing its own support system: the teachers. Using first-hand accounts from teachers across the U.S., Confessions of a Bad Teacher is an eye-opening look at the dire state of American education and an essential blueprint for how to embrace our best educators and create positive change for our children's futures.