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"What's fresh and even exhilarating about Keizer's book is its locale -an uncelebrated, backwater corner of New England-and his commitment to this place, to altering the lives of his students. On subjects ranging from student courtesy to teenage sex, Keizer opens up his classroom and his commitment with wry wit and rare zeal . . . A seasoned, razor-sharp testament to the complexity and fulfillment of a beleaguered yet essential vocation. Garret Keizer can do the truly remarkable, he can make a reader yearn to go back to high school." —Smithsonian Magazine
A Christopher Award-winning story of Keizer's experiences teaching in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom.
Weaving anecdotal narrative with trenchant reflections on his profession, Garret Keizer offers one teacher's answer to the hue and cry over the crisis in education. An English teacher in rural Vermont, he writes of the opposing realities he faces every day: the promise and energy of the young and the oppressive effect of their economic disadvantages; the beauty of the countryside and its people and the harsh, sometimes ugly edge of life there; the need for discipline and the importance of rebellion. In exploring the demands peculiar to his own community, Keizer movingly depicts the difficulties-some triumphantly overcome, some overwhelming-that form the heart of teaching anywhere.
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GARRET KEIZER lives in northeastern Vermont, where in addition to writing he serves as an Episcopal minister, a role he explored in A Dresser of Sycamore Trees (1991).
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