Hello friends, welcome. Thank you for joining me today. I read a book that I think you need to read too.

And so I invited the author on to talk about it. Weird, weird how I did that.

Today I'm chatting with Alexander Robbins who has written a book called The Teachers.

And it is a peek behind the scenes of what life is like for teachers in America.

She is a fantastic writer. I think you're going to absolutely love reading this book.

It's really fast paced. It reads like a fiction book, but it's not. The subtitle is a year inside

America's most vulnerable, important profession. And I think you're going to find this conversation

very eye-opening. So let's dive in. I'm Sharon McMahon. And here's where it gets interesting.

People who have been listening to my show for a long time know that I am a long time teacher.

And that is one of the reasons I am really, really excited to be chatting today.

So thank you so much for being here, Alexandra. Thank you for having me.

I read your book The Teachers with great interest. And I want you to first boss at the stage

for people who have not yet read it. What is the premise of the book and tell me more about how you

conceived of this project? Well, I wanted to write a book that would open the public's eyes.

Kind of a wake up call to show readers what being a teacher is really like. And in order for

them to want to read it, I figured I had to write a fast paced, fun to read, sort of fiction style

book in order for the public not only to understand from the teacher's perspective what's going on

inside schools, but also to have characters they could root for and fall in love with and

care about as they turn the pages. So I followed three teachers over the course of a school year.

Penny, a math teacher in the south, Miguel, a special education teacher out west,

and Rebecca and East Coast Elementary School teacher so that people can really get lost in there,

sort of fascinating behind the scenes, sort of relatable stories and secrets and understand

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