An inspirational story of a man who, rather than admit defeat at the hands of his tormentors, looked his fears in the eyes and became a teacher of disadvantaged youth. This book will at times make you laugh, make you cry, make you question what in the world is going on in our educational system, make you furious, and, in the end, make you feel hopeful. And thankful that there are people like the author who go out into the world and try to make a difference. Highly recommend!

What's great about a memoir or shall I call it just a personal story is the tone. With this book Steve takes us along with him to class, into the lives of his students, his fears, hopes and their expectations and fears you feel a myriad of emotions from joy to sorrow all in one and isn't that life?
I enjoyed reading this book.
Thanks Netgalley for the eARC. This book is an inspiration.

I am an Instructional Aide in schools and have worked in Alternative Schools for students that are behaviorally challenged and have found the students at these schools thrive when they are offered personalized attention and when someone genuinely believes in them. The author of this book took caring about those students that others write off to a whole new level. The fact that the author entered teaching to help these students after being attacked at knifepoint by teens is just awe-inspiring. Sometimes bad things happen for a good reason and the attack on the author by those teens set him up for a lifetime of assisting others to succeed.

I found this book to be incredibly moving = what Steve has accomplished and even just his intentions were beyond noble. I found myself tearing up more than once.

That being said, I do think that he fell into a bit of a trap where the editing was covered. There were moments where I felt could have been cut down, but that I imagined felt very personal to the author, which is probably whey they were still in there.

Overall, I think this should be required reading for any educator - its important to treat your students as individuals, but more importantly as people with potential for greatness.

I could not put this book down. I was crying, laughing, and learning throughout the book.
This book should be required reading for anyone thinking of going into business. HECK, everyone should just read this book because it is so inspirational.
I loved the writing, the stories, the people, and most of all the kids. The children who society had thrown away actually began to believe in themselves.
I cried when they wrote their obits and it was all gun shots and mugging. This is not the world in which we want young people to grow up in.
I am so thankful that Mr Mariotti decided to teach after his mugging and not only that...but to learn what actually got through to the students.
There are heroes everywhere and Mr Mariotti is one of them.