Indie Weekend is my effort to help Indie authors with marketing. Marketing is a daunting task, and if I can help even a little, I’m happy to do it. You can help too by sharing this post far and wide with all of your social media followers. Below is my review of Miss I Wish You A Bed of Roses by Sherri Moshman-Paganos. It is a delightful memoir about teaching English at a secondary school in Greece.
BOOK DESCRIPTION (FROM AMAZON)
Teaching: you’re frustrated and exhausted one day, gratified and fulfilled the next. Teaching is not like other careers; teachers give their whole selves to their students day after day.
Blending a humorous memoir with classroom ideas, the author looks back on her 40 years of teaching international students. She writes about her teaching insecurities, secondary school and college composition classes, the difficult and the great, the base and the sublime. She describes school grades, bells and meetings, and the routines of any high school. Although teaching in Greece has unique challenges, Greek teens are like teenagers everywhere, full of hopes and dreams for the future. Besides looking at her own career growth, the author offers advice for language and literature classes, and ideas for using poetry, songs, and film to create a lively atmosphere for learning.
Whether you are a new teacher interested in suggestions for your classes, including ESL or EFL teachers, or an experienced teacher looking for new ideas, this book is for you. But anyone who has taken an English language or literature class or has children taking literature classes will enjoy this spirited memoir, enhanced by the author’s poetry and student comments. Her main advice: “Content counts, but more so, formulating your teaching philosophy. And don’t forget to keep your temper and your sense of humor!”
BOOK REVIEW
This is a memoir that teachers will definitely enjoy, but I also recommend it to anyone interested in literature and interactions with other cultures. Moshman-Paganos recalls her early days teaching English in Greece and all the challenges, highs, and lows. The book is peppered throughout with poems and quotes that will both inspire you and make you smile. The author’s insight into working with teenagers and her helpful tips will definitely provide great ideas and inspiration to other teachers.
I most enjoyed the many, many stories about the author’s students and the appendixes in the back that included student answers to questions such as “When Are You Happiest?” and “What Occupation Would You Choose If You Didn’t Have To Worry About Money?” I enjoyed the samples of Student job application letters, especially the one for the vacant position of Defense Against The Dark Arts Teacher at Hogwarts. Moshman-Paganos’s clever and endearing way of teaching and interacting with students is admirable, and I think prospective teachers will be motivated by this book.
I downloaded a copy of this book on Kindle Unlimited, where subscribers can read it for free.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sherri Moshman-Paganos taught English to international students in New York City before joining the American College of Greece faculty in 1983. Here she taught secondary school English and college freshman composition classes.
Since her retirement in 2018, she has devoted herself to writing. She publishes a travel/culture blog on her travels in Greece and life in Athens called Olives and Islands. Besides “Miss I wish you a Bed of Roses,” she is also the author of a fictionalized memoir on her years in Manhattan: Step Lively: New York City Tales of Love and Change, and a collection of poetry, Wanderings: Poems of Discovery.
Click on the cover image to buy this on Amazon. Kindle Unlimited Subscribers can borrow this for free.
BEFORE YOU GO
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