The Boy Who Threw a Book at My Head
Date: December 24th, 2013
I spent the weekend trying to resurrect an inviting classroom from a carnage of mismatched plastic furniture. Every chair and desk wore battle scars or patches of duct tape. The closet overflowed with garbage. I’d been hired just three days before school started so, with almost no preparation time, I was grateful I’d be teaching an old favorite for my first class, “Catcher in the Rye.” Officially my title was teacher of the Emotionally and Behaviorally Disturbed; unofficially, it was 9th grade English.