Ms. Moffett's First Year: Becoming a Teacher in America

Rating:
Summary: Lyrical, yet hard-charging
Review: I adored this book. From the poignant anecdotes about these scrappy, precious inner-city kids, to the searing psychological portrait of this flawed but well-intentioned secretary-turned-teacher, to the lip-curling analysis of the New York City educational system, this book really has it all. Surprisingly, this intelligent, topical read is also a juicy page-turner that you will not be able to put down!

Rating:
Summary: Amazingly accurate portrait of NYC's schools
Review: I was eager to read this book, as Goodnough's NY Times series on the Teaching Fellows provided the impetus for my own leap into the program. I began teaching in Fall 2003 and can say that this book is amazingly accurate. While there have been a number of program changes (noted in the epilogue) the essential experience remains the same - the daily, even sometimes hourly, ups and downs of being a first year teacher with so little training is described in such exquisite detail that the book is, somewhat surprisingly, a page-turner.

Rating:
Summary: A MUST READ.
Review: I, too, was a New York City Teaching Fellow, and this book tells it like it is in America's urban schools.

If you are already a teacher, this book will reaffirm everything you already know about the ups and downs of this most challenging and rewarding job. When your friends and loved ones ask what you do every day, just give them this book to read.

If you are not a teacher, then you need to read this book to see what's really going on in our country's most troubled schools. It's all here -- the good, the bad, and the ugly.