New teachers are hopeful and enthusiastic for the first year, but also nervous and vulnerable. What will the students be like? How will the rest of the staff treat me? Will the first day go well? The Emergency Teacher reads like a novel, while also guiding new teachers through their exciting and challenging first year.

Ms. Asquith’s non-fiction account begins with her picking her school, then meeting with the recruiter and follows her in her brief training until the first day of school! Come with her as she confronts challenges familiar to teachers across America: She is swamped by bureaucratic red tape, turned off by the cynical veterans and alternatively harassed and ignored by her superiors. Yet, she finds sources of support in fellow teachers, her students’ willingness to learn, and her own ingenuity. Ms. Asquith doesn’t shy away from the deep problems she finds in the public schools, but she refuses to quit or to sink into despair. Unlike other new teacher books, Ms. Asquith’s tells the true, inside story, warts-and-all, of teaching in a troubled urban public school. Let The Emergency Teacher be your mentor.