Product Description
After suffering the greatest of personal tragedies, Dai O’Connel is no longer
willing to lie. A headstrong Welshman twenty years in an Oregon classroom, he
refuses either to lower standards or to implement the feel-good nonsense of Outcome
Based Curriculum, and as a result is targeted for dismissal.
Sent to document his failings is Solange Gonsalvás, Oregon’s youngest assistant
superintendent. Known both for breathtaking attractiveness and her dedication to
the job, she is relentless in pursuit of incompetent teachers. Deeply believing she can
make the district’s schools better, while struggling with her own concept of what
school should be, Solange finds O’Connel not at all as she expected. Principled,
confident, very good at what he does, Dai is not the kind of teacher Solange forces
from the classroom—but more than competence is at stake.
District politicos demand O'Connel's ouster, and if Solange wants the top job,
she must take his. Bewildered by the intense attraction she feels for the man, Solange
must choose between ruining an outstanding teacher's career and furthering her
own, a career for which she's sacrificed everything. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

A rare treat in a novel
Few novels today challenge the reader as well as entertaining him by presenting a story set amid a situation of controversy. This is a story about a man and a woman yes, but it is set in a school and presents many of the controversies in education today. I hear it was written by a former teacher, too, which is interesting. I enjoyed the story and the vivid characters, too.

A rare treat in a novel
Few novels today challenge the reader as well as entertaining him by presenting a story set amid a situation of controversy. This is a story about a man and a woman yes, but it is set in a school and presents many of the controversies in education today. I hear it was written by a former teacher, too, which is interesting. I enjoyed the story and the vivid characters, too.

Teaching today? A nightmare
It's a fact: what, half? of all new teachers quit in the first year? Something like that. Well, here's why. Oh, be prepared, this teacher is not one of the cuddly ones. He's a tough old bastard, the kind of teacher I had in 9th grade English, one of the ones you never forget, and not because they were easy on you. Sometimes we forget that teachers have private lives, at least as kids we did. This shows that too and I liked it a lot the way it showed him and the woman who was going to terminate him clashing all through it. Do people always tell the truth? Do they always admit what they feel? Do they always want to feel what they do? Not in the best fiction they don't. Some will say that because this story doesn't end in despair, it's unrealistic. I disagree. Fiction need not be worse than real life to be real. See what you think.

Love story a guy can get into
I'm a guy, okay? We guys tend to avoid romances the way werewolves avoid... well, whatever they avoid. Why? Because they're just romances. There's no there there, just romance. This one is a story about something besides a guy and a gal getting together. It's about real people, not just people in love. There's real feel to it, too, a kind of vividness to it that I enjoyed. I could smell it. I could feel it. Loved the scene on angel hair pasta. More reviews here: A Terrible Beauty at the paperback page.

At Laaaaasssst!
Here we have a book that gets to the root of our problems in education.The school, and ultimately teachers, are held responsible for EVERYTHING.It was reassuring to find that someone out there had the nerve to point out the games played by systems to appease parents who believe that their children are not responsible for their own success or failure, no matter what they do or don't do.It points out the pressure on teachers to pass everyone, no matter how little students might invest, in an atmosphere where they get little respect or credit.
In spite of the typos and rough format, this is a powerful book, one which should be read by all practitioners of education, including school board members.Anyone who can't see the message in this book for the format or takes issue with all the actions of O'Connell, is part of the problem we face in our struggle to return some semblance of sanity and value to education.
Unless we are willing to acknowledge our shortcomings and face the fact that all the new fads in education are simply treating symptoms, we'll continue to get what we're getting.I applaud St. John for shrieking at the top of his lungs that the Emperor, indeed, is buck naked. ... Read more