A Hemlock Latte

Fifty percent of all new teachers, within three years, quit and become insurance adjusters. Wal-Mart greeters. Trader Joes cashiers. Considering the disrespect teachers experience in a public high school classroom we may wonder why more teachers don't go full-blown crazy. This is not your typical inspirational teacher story—this is a real-life view of what it's like to be a neophyte in the lion's den. An idealistic first-year teacher storms into the classroom ready to change the world only to smack into a wave of student contempt, parental apathy, and administrative aggression. Gabriel, the teacher, pushes back. His angst as rampant as his students, he draws the wrath of the other teachers, the principal, as well as the local weekly, but in the process, he gains the admiration of his students. And then, at the height of his power and at the pinnacle of controversy, he vanishes, leaving his students in the midst of a tempest.

A visual artist, Muller Davis lives in Santa Fe, NM, where he taught language arts in the public schools for five years. His two previous books—Drag Her Out Into the Light: Art and Poems and Always Us Embracing: Poems & Drawings—are filled with weirdness and available on his website: monkeymonkeylove.com.