Class Dismissed

by Kevin McIntosh

STUDENT GIVES TEACHER THE FINGER, screams the Post headline after Patrick Lynch slams his classroom door on the hand of Josh Mishkin, the learning-disabled son of two NYU professors. Josh’s injury casts Patrick, thirty-year-old son of the Midwest, down a New York City rabbit hole of Board of Ed bureaucracy and union politics. Transformed into an unwilling celebrity by his fellow inmates in that teacher purgatory, the Rubber Room, Mr. Lynch is suddenly more “at risk” than any of his students. Now he must fight his way back to his classroom at Marcus Garvey High School and reclaim the affections of his social worker fiancée, all while wrestling the legend of his late father, Superintendent Lynch, the pride of Peterson’s Prairie, Minnesota.

228 pages, Paperback

Published July 1, 2021

Reviews

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Class Dismissed provides an insider's view of a young teacher's life. Both Patrick Lynch's professional life and his personal life hit some all time lows when one of his students loses a finger in his classroom. When Lynch is sent to the NYC teachers' "Rubber Room" while he awaits a hearing to decide his culpability in the "situation", Lynch spends the time reflecting on what led him to this place.

Lynch is brilliant and caring. He pushes his students to high levels of writing, increasing their vocabulary and thinking with his own modeling. You get to see his inner turmoil over trying to reach some of his more troubled students, including Josh Mishkin, the bane of his existence in this story. And when he makes mistakes, he second guesses himself to the detriment of his personal life. As his father always said, "Can't lose your temper with kids. When you let yourself get angry at a student, even if you're right, you've lost. You're a grown up playing their game, and you can't win" (111). Has Patrick lost the game or can he pull off a win in the end?

[Alysia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it! Thank you, Kevin!!

[Deborah Charnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Entertaining, yet touched upon many social issues. Well-developed range of characters. Plus, there were plenty of unexpected twists and turns that made the book even more of a page-turner.

[Eric Berkowitz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book -- a lot. With a natural storyteller's light touch, and humor in all the right places, McIntosh tells a serious, and perfectly structured, story. Along the way, I learned much about public education, class, daytime Guiness ingestion, Joseph Conrad, and the dreaded "rubber room" where reprobate NYC school teachers are sent to cool their heels. I love when novels eschew the exotic and find the wonders that exist around us. This is such a book, and it is a complete success.

Hats off Mr. McIntosh! I cannot wait to read what you come up with next.

[M B McLatchey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spoiler alert: The end is the beginning. Thus describes the life of a teacher who has given his mind and soul to those who have appeared before him. This is teaching. Or, I should say, this is the best teaching –what Kevin McIntosh gives us in Class Dismissed – the best coaching, the best learning – and from whom do the best teachers learn? Not the teaching degrees we earned, not our colleagues in the Faculty Lounge, but from the alpha-male in the class who refuses to give up his hard-earned status, from the hurt girl in the middle row who now and then meets eyes with the learning before her, and from the reticent one who speaks when called upon. Wisdom is delivered from the hurt, the wounded, and the privileged in Class Dismissed – precisely as it should be in a true and insightful and grace-infused delivery of what teaching is. Read this book, fellow educators, and be inspired to keep going.