Philly Math

If you'd like a deep peek inside the education industry, this is the book for you. Mr. Williams worked at school districts in an urban environment, a rural one, and in the suburbs. He also taught in Alternative Education schools and a Jewish Yeshiva. In addition to describing these experiences, he documents one complete day in which he commuted in from the suburbs to teach high school math to inner city kids in Philadelphia, describing step by step what he did that day, his interactions with his family, the people he saw on the train and the street, and his struggles with his students. You’ll know afterwards what it’s like to be a teacher.

Mr. Williams has a unique perspective because he survived ten years teaching with what most educators would consider “insufficient classroom management skills.” Teaching is one of the few professions where the boss (the teacher) is fired when the workers (students) refuse to work. And the students know this—some of them depend on it.

Here he offers his teaching philosophies as well as many of the teaching practices and unique lesson plans that enabled him to survive.