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Dan Brown's riveting memoir of his first year teaching in the Bronx has just come out in paperback.  The Great Expectations School: A Rookie Year in the New Blackboard Jungle also includes a new foreward from AFT president Randi Weingarten, who writes:

The Great Expectations School is an honest account of what teachers-- especially new teachers-- face every day. Dan's story is a valuable one to share and analyze, because it is a story that is constantly replayed in various forms in classrooms all across America. Though new teachers like Dan bring optimism and the best of intentions to their work, they are also, alas, too often woefully unprepared for the experiences yet to come.

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As any educator will tell you, the induction process--specifically support and mentoring--is essential to a beginning teacher's development and success in the profession; and Dan writes eloquently about the manifold costs to be paid when this support is lacking.

Yet despite these struggles, I read The Great Expectations School as, ultimately, a story of optimism, pained as it is. Dan's journey with his fourth-graders and their tiny, remarkable moments of connection--like when troubled Lito Ruiz shows off his newfound talent in creative writing--are exhilarating and priceless.

Dan's recent blog posting on the new paperback edition is also well worth reading.  I particularly like his evocative description of a school classroom:

Classrooms are ready-made for great stories. Comprised of twenty-some children and one adult, bound by a common mission, they are intersections of youth and experience, energy and discipline, empowerment and failure. They are fascinating spaces, and given schools' task of preparing our next generation, the stakes couldn't be higher.