The Hapless Teacher's Handbook

by Phil Ball

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 to the 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 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 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.

Genres: Education

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Phil Ball born 1957 in Vancouver, Canada is a British writer based in Spain. He has lived in Donostia-San Sebastián, Spain, for over twenty years. Born in Canada to English parents, Phil Ball grew up in Grimsby on the north east coast of England, having moved there as a child in 1957. As a youngster Phil Ball supported Grimsby Town, saying "I was brought up on lower league football". After finishing University, Ball took up an English teaching post in a state comprehensive school in Hull. He subsequently taught in Peru and later Oman, eventually moving to San Sebastián after the first Gulf War.

Reviews

[Vishy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have had Phil Ball's 'The Hapless Teacher's Handbook' with me for a long time. It looked like a comic memoir, and I thought that it was written by someone who was new to the teaching profession and it looked like he had taken all his new experiences and spun it off into a fun memoir. I thought I'll read it when I was in the mood for something comic, and so it rested in my bookshelf for years and gathered dust. A few days back, I decided to take it down and read it.

First things first. My perception of the author was totally wrong. It was Phil Ball 100 – Me 0. When I read the book, I realized that Phil Ball was no green horn, he was no spring chicken. He has been a teacher for decades and after starting his teaching career in England, he has taught in many different countries. He has written books on teaching. He was an experienced hand, he was a veteran. So the comic nature of the book, the humour, springs from the weight of experience, and it is not a newbie's attempt to sound cool. I was surprised and happy when I discovered that.

In the book, Phil Ball describes the first four years of his teaching career, starting from the time he applied for a certificate in teaching course after finishing university. He gives more weight to the initial years in the book – they occupy more pages. The time when he joins a school for 'Teaching Practice', which is part of his course, and when he tries teaching for the first time, is covered in considerable detail. It was one of my favourite parts of the book. He also talks in detail about the initial months and year when he first took a job as a teacher in a school. In these two parts of the book, we are able to see the teaching profession through a new young teacher's eyes and it is fascinating, because we discover that however much one prepares for it, reality is always more complex and different. Through the book, Phil Ball also tells us about teachers who inspired him, teachers who were eccentric, students who were interesting and students who were eccentric outsiders. The music teacher in his school is one such character – his piano playing is divine and he should have been a concert pianist, but as he is introverted and shy, his fellow teachers make fun of him, and his students bully him. There is a student who thinks that he is the reincarnation of the poet Andrew Marvell, and he rarely listens to the lessons in the class, because he is composing poetry. There is an elementary school teacher with whom he worked with, who brings a lot of joy to the class, and his own high school teacher who takes the class textbook and throws it into the dustbin (makes us remember Robin Williams' character in 'Dead Poets Society') and then proceeds to do something very inspiring. It was wonderful to read about all these amazing people.

From its first lines –

"There are proactive people and there are reactive people, and that's basically it. It took me a long time to realise that I belonged to the latter group"

– 'The Hapless Teacher's Handbook' is captivating and it refuses to let go till the end. Phil Ball's understated British humour is wonderful and in many places we can't stop laughing. I loved this memoir – it was comic, insightful, fascinating filled with wonderful real-life characters. It is one of my favourite books of the year. It is a shame that it is not more well known. It deserves more readers.

Have you read 'The Hapless Teacher's Handbook'? What do you think about it?

[Rose]

What I found most interesting about this book was how very different teaching was not so long ago: the lack of planning, the ability of the teacher to decide (more or less) whatever they wanted to teach, and the much less stringent process of becoming a fully-qualified teacher. Admittedly, the author must (by his own admission) have been one of the more slapdash teachers of that era, and I am sure that others working alongside him did plan and organise rather more than he did, but in this account the entire atmosphere is different. The author's teaching -- spending most of his day setting work then ignoring the children while reading the paper -- beggars belief by modern standards, as does the rather odd "remedial education" supplied by the school.

I enjoyed the pen-portraits of many of the major characters, and especially liked the account of the traveller children and of the junior school teacher. (I did wonder why, having enjoyed the junior school so much compared to the comprehensives, he didn't consider changing to primary education).