educated: My Life as a Teacher, and Why You Should Never Become One

'Francis is doing for teaching what This is Going to Hurt did for medicine. Brutal, honest and laugh-out-loud funny.' Jimmy Carr 'A great subject covered by a guy unafraid to tell it like it is' Geoff Norcott The class weren't laughing with me, they were laughing at me and there is no lonelier place for a comedian or teacher to be in. The lesson was over and everyone knew it. I looked down and realised that my flies were undone. This is the reality of teaching. Welcome to the reality of what it's really like to be a teacher - the pure, unvarnished truth of what it means to stand in front of a group of thirty kids and try and get them to do some work. It's not the inspirational vision you see in government ads; rather it's breaking up fights between warring East End grandmas, figuring out which student defecated in the sink, and dealing with prepubescent sociopaths intent on annihilating lessons week after week. In brutal, hilarious and gory detail, comedian Francis Foster lifts the lid on the indignities, humiliations, rare triumphs and devastating blows he experienced as a teacher in some of the most notorious schools around the country. But so much more than a teacher's memoir, (Un)educated shines a light on the problems in the UK education system in uncompromising fashion, exposing how the most vulnerable children in society are being failed. And if you're not listening? Well, turns out it's not only your own time you're wasting.