Brendan James Murray_54

Brendan Murray is a teacher, the best kind of great teacher: geeky cool, non-judgemental, engaged, pragmatic. And he's a writer, hence 'The School', a memoir of a year at an un-named Government high school on the Mornington Peninsula. He writes about the ghosts that populate every school room, barely remembered; Murray defends the detachment teachers must practice, but this book—a lyrical, emotionally engaging introduction to a handful of kids, framed by a single school year—undercuts that defence. Murray gives us Tessa and Lonnie, bullied and bully. Illiterate Grace, failed by the system. Angry Charlie, who channels his fury into competitive sport. Lovely Kelvin. Wambui. Claire. Kids with dark backstories and complex challenges, kids with the wrong parents and kids with mighty ambitions. Murray savages the Victorian education system, then goes back to calmly doing the very best he can for the kids briefly in his care.