Teacher at Point Blank: Confronting Sexuality, Violence, and Secrets in a Suburban School

Teacher at Point Blank answers this question at a time when concerns about school performance, safety, and teacher attrition are at an all-time and often anxious high. Meditating on subtle and overt forms of violence in secondary public education from an up-close and "pink collar" point of view, Jo Scott-Coe examines her own workplace as a microcosm of the national compulsory K-12 system, where teachers-now nearly 80% women-find themselves idealized and disparaged, expected to embody the dedication of parents, the coldness of data managers, and the obedience of Stepford spouses.

Haunted and compelled forward by memories of a classmate who commits suicide on campus, a former teacher-colleague who dies all alone, Hollywood fantasies of the "ideal teacher," and chronic reports of school violence and increasing gender crime, Scott-Coe reveals how her hopes, past and present, struggle for breath at the point blank of denial, confinement, addiction, isolation, hostility, subliminal eroticism-and, at times, a healthy dose of fear.