Book Review

Book Review:  Same as it Never Was

By Greg Michie

(Review by Jim Vail)

I remember when I read Greg Michie's first book Holler If You Hear Me like it was yesterday. It was so revealing and realistic, describing what it is like to be a first year teacher in a Chicago Public School.

It was so incredibly empowering for teachers or wanna bees to read a book by a colleague who had to deal with classroom management problems that we all face with recalcitrant kids dealing with deep emotional problems that explode in the classroom. If you wanna know what it is like to teach in CPS, read that book! It was a bestseller, and well deserved.

What made that book also so great was how inspiring Mr. Michie is when it comes to dealing with children in a rough part of town on the South Side. He went into their lives and dug deep to know the community, the families, the joys and tribulations.

Many teachers on the South and West Sides, like myself, have probably attended funerals of their former students. I remember mine when I heard the incredible news that my former - and favorite - student William Diaz was shot in an alley in Little Village in an apparent gangland reprisal. We wept, we laughed, we reflected. It is the hard, cold reality of this city.

So I was very interested in hearing that he had written a follow up book just published in 2019 by Teachers College Press called Same as it Never Was. 

Michie was a public middle school social studies teacher who engages in hands-on learning projects. They make videos about their neighborhood. He inspires them to read books that are real about their community. People who look and talk like them. They turn into readers.

After teaching, Michie became an education professor for about 10 years. He then returned to the classroom and the same school - which he does not name in the book located in Back of the Yards - that he taught in the 1990's. This time he reflects in his new book about the new realities of public schools, namely over testing. He expressed trepidation about having to get the students test scores up and would it take away from his mission to educate and inspire. Alas, his focus to inspire kids to read, and in the process they will do well on the tests, worked out. His kids did fine.

The book, however, sort of solidifies my father's mantra that once you've read one book from an author, you've read them all. Michie's masterpiece was Holler If You Hear Me - he could not duplicate that.

And Michie left public school teaching to return to the hallowed halls of academia.

What made Michie's first book so wonderful was it was real because he was a real teacher, not a fly in like so many writers who want to "experience" a year or two just so they can write their book.

Which makes his second book a bit suspect. Yes, he returned to teaching and did teach for a few more years. But he is now an academic - he crossed over to the "other side." The side that reflects a different reality, one that Michie admitted is far distant from dealing with a roomful of city kids and all their problems. It reminded me when I crossed over from journalism to public relations. The two run counter to each other.

I would still recommend Michie's latest work - Same As It Never Was - because it's Michie, and it's inspiring again. But don't have great expectations for his latest (he's written a couple other books). Better yet, read the first one if you haven't. For beginners and veterans alike - it is a treatise on how to teach in a world the general public knows little to nothing about.