A review by judyward
Learn Me Good by John Pearson

4.0

John Pearson earned a degree in Engineering from Duke University and then worked for nearly four years in Dallas, Texas as a thermal design engineer before being laid off. He decided to go back to college to be certified as a math teacher and found himself at the beginning of the next school year standing in front of a class of 3rd graders in an inner city school as their Math/Science teacher. This book is the journey of that year of teaching told through a series of emails to his friend, Fred Bommerson, who still worked at Heat Pumps Unlimited. The emails are full of sarcasm, a touch of despair, a huge helping of tenderness and respect, humor, and, ultimately, a lot of love. Pearson comments that he traded in conference calls, product testing, and business cards for parent-teacher conferences, standardized testing, and report cards while noting that the maturity level of the people surrounding him didn't significantly change. After reading about the 40 3rd graders that Pearson taught every day--two sections of 20--I was amazed to discover that they reminded me quite strongly of the college students that I teach (harass, conjole, perform for, etc.) every semester. His third graders have the same limited attention span, urge to get off subject, lack of respect for authority, behaviorial issues, family problems, procrastination, and indifference to detail (wait, I have some of those qualities too)as my college students and I have the same affection for my students as the author has for his. While students of any age can drive educators to distractions (and sometimes substance abuse) there are those moments when you realize why you gave up the big bucks to spend your time in the classroom. One of my favorite moments in the book was the last day of school when all of the students are on the buses pulling out of the school and the teachers "were waving, clapping, dancing, and shooting off pistols into the air. I think that I even saw someone hold up a sign that read 'John 3:16'." And then comes the realization that he's already looking forward to the next school year. I know the feeling.