It Won't Be Easy: An Exceedingly Honest (and Slightly Unprofessional) Love Letter to Teaching

Tom Rademacher

Apr 2017 · U of Minnesota Press

About this ebook

Tom Rademacher wishes someone had handed him this sort of book along with his teaching degree: a clear-eyed, frank, boots-on-the ground account of what he was getting into. But first he had to write it. And as 2014’s Minnesota Teacher of the Year, Rademacher knows what he’s talking about. Less a how-to manual than a tribute to an impossible and impossibly rewarding profession, It Won’t Be Easy captures the experience of teaching in all its messy glory.

The book follows a year of teaching, with each chapter tackling a different aspect of the job. Pulling no punches (and resisting no punch lines), he writes about establishing yourself in a new building; teaching meaningful classes, keeping students a priority; investigating how race, gender, and identity affect your work; and why it’s a good idea to keep an extra pair of pants at school. Along the way he answers the inevitable and the unanticipated questions, from what to do with Google to how to tell if you’re really a terrible teacher, to why “Keep your head down” might well be the worst advice for a new teacher.

Though directed at prospective and newer teachers, It Won’t Be Easy is mercifully short on jargon and long on practical wisdom, accessible to anyone—teacher, student, parent, pundit—who is interested in a behind-the-curtain look at teaching and willing to understand that, while there are no simple answers, there is power in learning to ask the right questions.

Ratings and reviews

This book is brilliant. It is not a manual to teaching. It is not filled with statistics and sources. It slanders ineffective teachers in an inefective system. Those who disliked this books were looking for something it is not or they disagreed with the author. I did not read this book because I'm scared of becoming a teacher and I wanted all the help I could get. I read this book because I'm looking to completely turn the education system on its head, and it seemed like the author would also like that. If you're interested in a teacher's personal experience in the education system, this book is for you. If you are one of those "I love the education system and all it does" people, this book is also for you. It's always good to get different opinions. Rademacher is not perfect. He is just a man. Just a teacher who is trying to make things better. And I love that about this book. It is real, and it is honest. And I will refer back to it throughout my career teaching. I really enjoyed it.

About the author

Tom Rademacher is an English teacher in Minneapolis. His writing has appeared in EdPost, MinnPost, and on his blog, Mr. Rad’s Neighborhood, and he speaks about teaching at universities, conferences, and TEDx events. In 2014 he was honored as Minnesota’s Teacher of the Year.

Dave Eggers is author of ten books, including, most recently, Heroes of the Frontier. He is the founder of McSweeney’s, an independent publishing house in San Francisco, California, and cofounder of 826 National, a network of eight tutoring centers around the country.