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Subscribe to get full access to this unusual newsletter Know the Teacher Left Behind.

  • Know the Teacher Left Behind offers rare insight, commentary and even creative writing from a veteran teacher, coach, activist and teachers' union representative on the front-lines of urban education, commencing in October of 2022 (with over 50 published Substack posts over an eight month period). This special access keeps documenting — in real time — the author’s gradual changeover from the many challenging demands of teaching into a third-act career of performing and writing full-time for the stage, film, poetry, personal memoir nonfiction and occasional photo art or journalism.

  • William R. Boyer, a former alternative rock and roll band member (under stage name of Bill Blank), has taught, coached and lived in urban Detroit for almost 40 years; first as a private-lesson percussion instructor (from 1985-1997), then as a public school substitute teacher (1997-99), before teaching full-time, starting the same year as the Bill Clinton impeachment and Columbine High School massacre (1999). While this his storied evolution has endured many a national and local crisis (most recently, the pandemic lockdown and rising school violence), it has also ardently overlapped with a lengthy playwriting and periodic performance career, as further mined in this Substack column.

  • Know the Teacher Left Behind will publish twice a week:

    Sunday Evening:

    Free column to all subscribers, with the continued wide variety of reports from the front lines of teaching, along with occasional stage plays, poetry and related sample memoirs.

    Wednesday Evening:

    A paid subscription dive ($5 a month/$50 per year) after a brief free access introduction; a deeper analysis, with stories, stage plays and screenplays often related to education but not limited to life inside schools (with additional opportunities to dialogue comments and recommendations with the writer).

  • Special features will include occasional podcasts and interviews with leading educators and related creative contributors — and responses to your recommendations for deeper dives into various topics and mediums.

So, like, jump in and

Thank you,

William R. Boyer

NOTE: I remain currently employed in an urban high school on the edge of Detroit, so the real names of students and colleagues will be changed (unless appropriate or authorized by an adult, usually one interviewed or quoted).

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Unusual storied reality from an urban high school educator and beyond. . . .

People

As an urban high school educator -- and activist playwright-poet-performer -- for over two dozen years, I offer unusual insights into the overlooked and the overwhelming. In other words (worlds), Know the Teacher Left Behind. . . .