The Hapless Teacher's Handbook
By Phil Ball
2006
First Published
3.42
Average Rating
316
Number of Pages
When Phil Ball left university with a workmanlike English degree to his name and no discernible ambitions, he wasn't entirely sure what to do next. So, like many before him, he thought he'd giving teaching a go. Why not? And so began a story of his encounters with other remarkable teachers and pupils, from the good, the bad, and the violent to the victimized and the clinically insane. Meet his first teaching practice nemesis - Alan Plant, who knows his dark secret - and the pupil who believes he is a reincarnation of the poet Andrew Marvell. It is a tale of the highs and lows of attempting to from the joy of really making a difference to young minds to being physically set upon by a teenage horde. And that's just what happens in the classroom. Beyond it is the real world of teachers behind staff-room desperate lives, unseemly professional competition, a diet of cigarettes, alcohol, and cold coffee, casual sex and general social dysfunction. Not a great example, but the truth.
Avg Rating
3.42
Number of Ratings
24
5 STARS
17%
4 STARS
25%
3 STARS
42%
2 STARS
17%
1 STARS
0%
goodreads
Author
Phil Ball
Author · 5 books
Phil Ball born 1957 in Vancouver, Canada is a British writer based in Spain. He has lived in Donostia-San Sebastián, Spain, for over twenty years. Born in Canada to English parents, Phil Ball grew up in Grimsby on the north east coast of England, having moved there as a child in 1957. As a youngster Phil Ball supported Grimsby Town, saying "I was brought up on lower league football". After finishing University, Ball took up an English teaching post in a state comprehensive school in Hull. He subsequently taught in Peru and later Oman, eventually moving to San Sebastián after the first Gulf War.
