The Hapless Teacher's Handbook

When Phil Ball left university with a workmanlike English degree to his name and no discernible ambitions, he wasn't entirely sure what to do next. So, like many before him, he thought he'd giving teaching a go. Why not? And so began a story of his encounters with other remarkable teachers and pupils, from the good, the bad, and the violent tothe victimized and the clinically insane.

Meet his first teaching practice nemesis - Alan Plant, who knows his dark secret -and the pupil who believes he is a reincarnation of the poet Andrew Marvell. It is a tale of the highs and lows of attempting to teach: from the joy of really making a difference to young minds to being physically set upon by a teenage horde. And that's just what happens in the classroom.

Beyond it is the real world of teachers behind staff-room doors: desperate lives, unseemly professional competition, a diet of cigarettes, alcohol, and cold coffee, casual sex and general social dysfunction. Not a great example, but the truth. "