Bedford Public Library

Substitute, going to school with a thousand kids, Nicholson Baker

eng

Includes bibliographical references and index

autobiography

no index present

non fiction

Substitute

Nicholson Baker

going to school with a thousand kids

In 2014, after a brief orientation course and a few fingerprinting sessions, Nicholson Baker became an on-call substitute teacher in a Maine public school district. Nearly every morning, he awoke to the dispatcher's five-forty a.m. phone call and headed to a nearby school. When he got there, he did his best to follow lesson plans and help his students get something done. In Baker's hands, the inner life of the classroom is examined anew -- mundane worksheets, recess time-outs, surprise nosebleeds, rebellions, griefs, minor triumphs, kindergarten show-and-tell, daily lessons on everything from geology to metal tech to the Holocaust -- as he and his pupils struggle to find ways to get through the day. Baker is one of the most inventive and remarkable writers of our time, and this book, filled with humor, honesty, and empathy, may be his most impressive work of nonfiction yet. --, adapted from book jacket

Day one: Small but hostile -- Day two: Mystery picture -- Day three: I suck at everything -- Day four: Your brain looks infected -- Day five: Toast -- Day six: Out comes the eyeball -- Day seven: What the hell was that? -- Day eight: He's just a hairy person -- Day nine: I can write, but I don't write -- Day ten: Don't kill penguins cause other friends get sad -- Day eleven: She stole my grape -- Day twelve: I don't judge -- Day thirteen: There's nothing exciting or fun happening today -- Day fourteen: When you close your eyes and think of peace, what do you see? -- Day fifteen: But we didn't do anything -- Day sixteen: Silent ball -- Day seventeen: Non-negotiables -- Day eighteen: The man who needs it doesn't know it -- Day nineteen: Simple machines -- Day twenty: Stink blob to the rescue -- Day twenty-one: Keep your dear teacher happy -- Day twenty-two: He particularly doesn't like this particular spot -- Day twenty-three: How do you spell juicy? -- Day twenty-four: Hamburger writing -- Day twenty-five: High on summertime -- Day twenty-six: I kind of break my own spirit sometimes -- Day twenty-seven: That's just the way school is -- Day twenty-eight: Plutonic love