The Teachers

A Year Inside America's Most Vulnerable, Important Profession

By: Alexandra Robbins

Narrated by: Alexandra Robbins

***A National Bestseller***

A riveting, must-listen, year-in-the-life account of three teachers, combined with reporting that reveals what’s really going on behind school doors, by New York Times bestselling author and education expert Alexandra Robbins.

Alexandra Robbins goes behind the scenes to tell the true, sometimes shocking, always inspirational stories of three teachers as they navigate a year in the classroom. She follows Penny, a southern middle school math teacher who grappled with a toxic staff clique at the big school in a small town; Miguel, a special ed teacher in the western United States who fought for his students both as an educator and as an activist; and Rebecca, an East Coast elementary school teacher who struggled to schedule and define a life outside of school. Robbins also interviewed hundreds of other teachers nationwide who share their secrets, dramas, and joys.

Interspersed among the teachers’ stories—a seeming scandal, a fourth-grade whodunit, and teacher confessions—are hard-hitting essays featuring cutting-edge reporting on the biggest issues facing teachers today, such as school violence; outrageous parent behavior; inadequate support, staffing, and resources coupled with unrealistic mounting demands; the “myth” of teacher burnout; the COVID-19 pandemic; and ways all of us can help the professionals who are central both to the lives of our children and the heart of our communities.

©2023 Alexandra Robbins (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

A New York Times Spring Nonfiction Pick
A USA Today "Hottest New Book Release"
A Next Big Idea Club 2023 Must Read
A Kirkus “Most Buzzworthy Book Right Now”
An Oprah Magazine "Best Conversation-Starting Book of the Year"

"Never before have I read any work that so clearly depicts the current realities of teaching in America’s public schools…for those who seek a fuller understanding of what educators are coping with these days, it should prove invaluable. And for those who most need to read it — those in a position to effect change in the lives of conscientious and talented teachers who are considering abandoning the profession — one can only hope that its message will be heeded before it is too late.” —Washington Post

“The Teachers is engaging and impeccably researched.... [It] accomplishes many things — bringing readers into classrooms, showing how politics affect teachers, exposing how awful things like book banning have gotten — but two of its biggest triumphs are eviscerating popular misconceptions about the profession and showing the colossal passion that keeps teachers going…The Teachers is an exposé, sure, but it's also a call to action, and our collective future is at stake.” —NPR

“[A] compelling and highly important book… an engaging, well-researched exposé and call to action that delves deeply into the full lives and experiences of American teachers. For those who teach, this book will ring true on just about every page; for those who don’t, this book is essential reading.” —New York Journal of Books

Insightful

I think this book is a good window to how and what is going on in the classroom- it helps to humanize the teachers and to see the struggles, I could have done well without the accents and extra of the narrator but overall the content of this book was pretty good, there are many parents and those who are not parents who don’t understand or see the struggles or teachers. The profession which should be prized above all else as that is the most important part of early formation of so many children, yet we neglect them. They are underpaid, not valued and dismissed by our society and we should do better.

Good mixture of facts and true stories

The voices for some of the teachers were painful to listen to. This was distracting as the listener

Do NOT Buy the Audiobook

The absolute worst performance I have ever heard. The book is fine but read it, don’t listen.

Spot on…

As a teacher this book provides an accurate portrayal of teacher lives. I wish the epilogue was heard by all stakeholders - especially those who have never stepped foot into a school or classroom for length of time. You have no idea what it is like.

Great insight into the teaching profession

I am a teacher and this is spot on. The audio version of this is a little harder to listen to. The accents the reader uses aren’t great. But overall great book!

Stop it with the accents!

Your accent of Penny does not fit the authors description of her personality. It’s very distracting. And her accent changed half way through the first chapter story.

How To Survive a Teaching Career

Alexandra Robbins delights in burrowing under the surface of things – she did it with nurses, sororities, overachieving students, and now she’s done it for teachers. If you are a beginning teacher, this book will help you figure out the secret rules of teaching that your education professors haven’t told you. It will help you survive as a teacher. I wish I had read this book before I began my teaching career – it would have helped me understand how to navigate the world of education outside the classroom.

I listened to the entire book on Audiobook over four days as I was driving to and from school, cleaning the house, and doing the weekend shopping. Alexandra Robbins catches what feels most true to me – the experience of real teachers trying to survive the system so they can do what they love most, which of course is to teach.

Perhaps its authentic nature comes from the fact that Robbins spent a year working as a long-term sub while researching and writing the book, using her early mornings to write and her late nights to create lesson plans (because she fell in love with her third-grade class). In taking the time to peer under the profession, she captured the emotional roller coaster teachers now face each day as they try to help their students recover from the Pandemic’s impacts.

I have taught in both independent and public schools for over 30 years, and I truly recognized the caring educators she describes – the good, the bad, the ugly, and the superb. She even takes the time to describe the teachers who bully their peers, an experience I’ve faced myself. She captures the parents who drive all of us crazy – who steamroll you and your non-teacher wife at a theater production with long conversations about how their child is so awesome, who treat you as a servant who should respond to an email command immediately, and who cannot seem to realize they are dealing with real human beings. The hard-hitting essays that come between the stories — my favorite fun fact was the massive impact a qualified librarian can have upon graduation rates within a school — are worth the price of the book alone.

I recommend this to teachers who wish to survive the industry, those who love teaching and wish to complete their careers but feel discouraged, even principals and superintendents and central office leaders who want a refresher course on what it’s like to see a class through a teacher’s eyes.

The book’s most profound insight emerges when Robbins shows through her stories what I think is the essential problem at the heart of education today — that because most teachers are nurturers by nature, and because too many administrators believe leading means demanding more from their subordinates, you end up with a pecking order in which teachers are essentially helpless and voiceless at the bottom of policy discussion, some even bullied within a toxic work environment by the building leaders who should be protecting them. Thus, because teachers are usually overwhelmed with work, they don’t have the emotional bandwidth to defend themselves strategically. Most respond by just trying to stay out of their admin’s way so they can do their job. In a marriage, you call that domestic abuse – in the teaching profession, it seems to be a best practice.

Finally, Robbins does an excellent job narrating her own work: her varied voices are excellent, and the sound editing is superb. If you are a teacher, parent, or educational leader who cares about education, you must read or listen to this book. In the current social media bubble – a place where teachers are disrespected and abused by conservative thought leaders – hers is a voice that needs to be heard and her solutions implemented.

Read with an open mind

The book really does illustrate the highs and lows of education. I could listen to it in chunks, then ponder what the author was saying and move on. The voices didn’t bother me at all.

Insight into a very real struggle

As a spouse of a teacher and a parent of two school age children, the author delved into the lives and challenges of educators in a meaningful way. Many of us have no idea of the struggle our education system makes it for teachers to do their jobs.

Essential book to understand the teaching profession

I found the book very informative and fair. It’s also quite frustrating to see how society treats teachers.