SUB: My Years Underground in America's Schools

by Tom Gallagher

Overview

As a substitute teacher in the schools of San Francisco and South San Francisco since some time in the last millennium (and in Boston before that), Tom Gallagher sees kids on their worst behavior five days a week – that's when business is good. Once a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, where he was affectionately known as Tommy the Commie and sat on the Joint Committee on Education, Gallagher currently holds the line against academic entropy in everything from pre-Kindergarten through 12th Grade, from Physics to Phys Ed.
The fundamental stance of Sub: My Years Underground in America's Schools is wry – it dares raise questions like why the guy who invented middle schools was never prosecuted for crimes against humanity. At the same time, Gallagher finds much of the current national debate on education misplaced: The system works just fine for some, while for others schools are asked to solve problems in children's lives that are far beyond their scope.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940151295437
Publisher:	Coast to Coast Publishing
Publication date:	04/22/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	319
File size:	443 KB

About the Author

Interspersed with his substitute teaching, Tom Gallagher has also been a Massachusetts State Representative, a United Nations Election Officer in East Timor, an Election Supervisor in Sarajevo, an Election Observer in Baku and a freelance book reviewer. He has sold tickets for the San Francisco Opera, affixed Super Regular stickers to gas pumps, worked in lots of political organizations and campaigns, headed up a successful anti-Iraq War ballot question campaign and done or been a few other things. He currently lives in San Francisco, but still considers Boston and New York home as well.

Editorial Reviews

Substitute teachers, like plumbers and emergency room doctors, don't see systems at their best. Crap and blood everywhere is their normal. Worse, subs are generally not appreciated. People usually thank plumbers and doctors. In the average classroom, when the sub walks in, the devils leap with joy. Tom Gallagher's new book, Sub: My Years Underground in America's Schools, is a hilarious and insightful chronicle of one man's odyssey as a substitute teacher ...

48 Hills - Martin Nicolaus

As described in hilarious but often painful detail by Gallagher, the classroom challenges facing subs are simply off the chart, in terms of job difficulty. Gallagher's daily vignettes read like an account of life on the battlefield and in boot camp at the same time.

Huffington Post - Steve Early

One of the premises of his book as stated in the Preface is "that we don't fundamentally have an educational crisis in this country... the educational system is working... What I do believe we have is a social crisis." It should be noted that this is one of the premises of Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools by Diane Ravitch.

Boston Union Teacher - Mary Glynn

This from-the-bottom-up look at our public schools, far more than the lofty, abstract tomes that dominate education-reform writing, leaves you not only laughing but seeing how the problems of our schools can never be solved in the schools alone -- for they are really the problems of our society.

Murphy Institute Blog - Joshua Freeman

It is a delight. I laughed out loud often. Meanwhile, almost insensibly, Gallagher's deeper concerns show through: these schools, despite most people's best intentions, are failing too many young African Americans. And closer you come to that reality, the less easy it is to imagine easy improvements.

Can It Happen Here?" - Jan Adams