“I am a high school math teacher and care more about how we are treating KIDS than what we are teaching them.”  “There are 48,000,000 students enrolled in Elementary and High Schools in 2004.  That means 36,000,000 of them are not having their needs met.”

This sums up Pat Patrick’s feelings about schools today.  In his May release, THE STRESS KITCHEN, Pat delves into the problems with education today.  Starting with his own autobiography and leading up to his thirty-five years as a teacher, Pat has seen education at its worst.  He tackles how children who are stuck in the middle, the “muddled middle” as he calls them, are not getting an adequate education.  From politicians and school boards to teachers, who just want the paycheck, and unreasonable curriculum mandates, no one is left unscathed following this look at America’s education system.  One of his biggest questions is why we must pass algebra in order to get into college.  How many people truly use algebra in their daily life?

As I read this book, I felt myself being transported in time.  I was one of these “muddled middles.”  I could do well in school, but from the very start, in kindergarten to be exact, my teacher would pull me up to the front of the class and ask me to read out loud to my peers while she went to make her personal phone calls for the day.  At that time, I was the only reader in the class, and she never knew what to do with me—this was her solution.  Years later, I would find myself being sent back to that same kindergarten teacher by my eighth grade teachers because they didn’t know what to do with me during the reading time that my peers were involved in, so they would send me to be a teacher’s assistant for that class period.  .  I quickly learned after much teasing and ridicule from my peers to “dummy” myself down.  I left high school and never looked back.

Now I’m a parent and I find myself constantly battling to make sure my children are not shoved into a similar pattern.  Thankfully, the school listens—or maybe they are just scared enough of me after I took my complaints about that school to the local newspaper after they announced a child’s abilities should have little to do with a child’s grade placement—age is a more appropriate deciding factor.  I understand where Pat Patrick is coming from and found a lot of beneficial information within the book.

I do suggest, however, that the author have a proofreader go over the book.  I found multiple punctuation issues and misspelled words (Bill O’Rielly should be O’Reilly) throughout.  I know from experience and feedback from readers that a less than perfect final copy of a book can be a major turn-off when a reader is paying over $10 for a paperback.