Yo, Miss: A Graphic Look At High School by Lisa Wilde

Yo, Miss: A Graphic Look At High School Reviews

• 
  Stewart Tame

  Lisa Wilde has been teaching since 1997. This graphic novel takes us inside John V. Lindsay Wildcat Academy in New York City. It's a second-chance high school, aimed at providing at-risk teens with an opportunity to get their high school diploma. Although the school is real, and the book is drawn from Wilde’s own experiences, the students are fictionalized composites. Everything rings true though, and the book is a fascinating look at just how complex and tough and, most of all, rewarding a teacher’s life can be.
  
  The art is on the crude side, sure, but the writing is more than strong enough to carry the book. I found myself deeply caring for these kids, and had to resist flipping to the end ahead of time just to see who graduates and who doesn't. There are triumphs and tragedies within these covers. Parts of it made me smile, and parts of it moved me almost to tears. This is an excellent graphic novel. Highly recommended!
• 
  Dave Schaafsma

  As a teacher of nearly 40 years, many of them in urban settings, I am of course a sucker for urban alternative school stories. Also, I'm usually skeptical: of such stories, white woman hero teacher stories, rescuing the poor kids of color. Stories that clean up and romanticize and simplify. Very few stories of urban classrooms are not Hero Stories, and I resent that. Teaching and learning is really complicated. We need to inspire, but we have to be real and show the real challenges that exist for kids and teachers and communities.
  
  This story is both inspirational and real from a nearly twenty year vet of alternative education. And it's not condescending or overt romantic or (in my opinion) covertly racist in its assumptions about what white teachers can do in working with students of color. We get to know and care about students; not enough to my liking, but we do get to know them. I like the sketchy, not too fancy artwork from Wilde; it fits the content. And many pages reveal that she knows comics artistry. Each chapter features a key image and terrific quote from literature that shape what follows.
  
  And it's really a story of her, a good and caring teacher, so I am going to recommend it get used in urban teacher education classes (where Wilde has also taught classes to prospective teachers). This is not a perfect book, but it will be good to help education students visualize and read about real kids struggling and sometimes surviving and sometimes thriving. None other than comics guru Alison Bechdel is quoted on the cover as calling this comics teaching memoir "riveting." Well, I don't know about that claim, but the more I read, the more I liked this story of a teacher's year in the classroom of a NYC urban high school. Teachers, check it out!
• 
  Elizabeth A

  Education is a subject near and dear to my heart, and as a person who taught for a couple of years in an urban school system, I know that whether a student succeeds or not has as much to do with what happens outside the classroom as within it.
  
  This is graphic memoir of a long time teacher at Wildcat Academy - a school in New York City where students are all considered at-risk, and are given their very last chance at graduating with a high school diploma. I liked the honesty of this book. The author takes an unflinching look at her students, their environments, and the education system, without giving herself a halo or wings. The black and white illustrations work well, though I did have a tough time telling some of the kids apart.
  
  As a society, the education of kids affects us all, and every parent should feel comfortable having their kids attend any school. If we do not, we might ask ourselves why that is. I'd highly recommend this book to parents, teachers, and anyone interested in education.
• 
  Martha

  I'm a teacher, so a teacher's story is perhaps more likely to speak to me than it is to others, but Wilde tells her tale magnificently, with humor and complexity and unwavering sensitivity to the students she portrays. Moving, funny, and wonderful.
• 
  Kathleen

  A look inside a second-chance high school! This English teacher is very involved in making sure all her students have the best possible chance at graduation.
• 
  Courtney

  This non-fiction graphic novel takes a look at a typical school year at Wildcat Academy, a school in New York City for teens for whom the regular high school setting hasn't worked. For many of these kids, Wildcat is a last-chance means of finishing high school and obtaining a diploma. Told through the eyes of one very dedicated English teacher, we meet a wide variety of students. Each of these students has their reasons for being in this school - learning disabilities, pregnancy, gang affiliation, rough home life, etc. Wilde's heartfelt narrative not only gives us insight into the challenging world of teaching; she makes the reader care about these kids nearly as much as she does.
  As someone who works with teens, though not in a school setting, I found this particularly appealing. I cannot fathom the amount of work and dedication that would go into teaching at a school like this. My hat is off to all the hard-working and devoted teachers out there who see what they're up against and dive in head-first anyway. Without teachers like Wilde and schools like Wildcat, so many students would slip through the cracks. Yo, Miss is not only a great read, it serves as a valuable reminder that we need to support the teachers and schools that make a difference in the lives of their students. Every student is worth the effort.
• 
  Liralen

  This one grew on me. Wilde takes the reader through a fictionalised year in the life of a teacher at a second-chance high school in NYC. This was shelved at my library as YA, but I suspect it's a better fit for an adult audience. Perfectly appropriate for a YA audience, though.
  
  While I wouldn't have minded a bit more complexity to the art—not that it was simple, mind, just that it took me a while to be able to tell some of the characters apart visually—there is complexity to the characters, and compassion in the way Wilde writes about them. Even the characters who make for a difficult teaching experience for Wilde are multifaceted, sometimes surprising both her and the reader. I loved that the focus really does stay on the school and the students; although Wilde's home life and family make cameo appearances, they're not the stars of the story. Wilde is in turn exasperated and encouraging, but it's clear that while a good teacher can make a huge difference, it's ultimately the students who have the make-it-or-break-it moments.
  
  The ending is a little ambiguous—the characters have plans, but whether or not those plans will be realised is uncertain. A little frustrating, perhaps...but then, true to life.
• 
  Kate

  I think I was expecting more from this book, but I still liked it. There is a bit of a white saviour feel to it, which was not surprising considering it's a book about a "second chance" school written by a white lady. It's for sure going to have a white saviour feel to it. I didn't feel all that connected to most of the characters, and I'm not sure why. Maybe it was the art style, which wasn't my favourite. But in general, I liked it. It's definitely written more for adults who work with teens than for teens though!
• 
  Christiana

  This is technically shelved and cataloged in teen, but I think young teachers and teachers in lower income neighborhoods are the real audience. Much more about a year in a teacher's life (and that point of view) rather than from the student's point of view. Still, an interesting look at something I know very little about!
• 
  Jill Adams

  Teachers will especially love this--
• 
  MrsB

  3.5*
  
  A graphic novel looking at the work life of a teacher and the lives of some of her students in a ‘school for children who have been failed by school’. As I don’t live in America, and I haven’t been a part of the American school system, it’s always interesting to learn a bit more about their educational institutions, and how they differ from here. I appreciated the internal dilemmas of Wild, including the stress of home life and supporting her pupils, whilst also looking at how traumatic things can be for the students. There is a lot that is expected from them. I was also grateful to read about the importance of students ‘buying in’ to their education, and the ways they tried to encourage that.
• 
  Angela

  As a substitute teacher this book was very true to life for how I feel about my students. I'm not always in the same classroom every day, but I get very invested in the futures of the kids I teach and I look forward to their successes. I love that I got to follow this group to their graduation and for those that didn't graduate there was a lot of hope. So many kids have life struggles so big that it's just hard to commit the energy for proper learning and if your parents doing invest themselves in your future it's hard to be enthused about it for yourself. Sometimes a teacher caring about our future is just enough to keep us going.
• 
  Ben Zimmerman

  This wasn't perfect, but I still enjoyed it. It was difficult to tell some of the characters apart because of the art style, mainly Will and Danny. I could tell Wilde was pushing herself with this work. There were creative page layouts, and she makes good use of the medium. This story would definitely have to be told differently if it were a novel.
  
  I got pretty invested in the story, but I'm a teacher, so that might not be the case for everyone. I was worried about the characters and got choked up seeing which ones were able to graduate. I also liked that Wilde acknowledged that it's a struggle to both allow creative expression and make room for test prep.
• 
  Erikka

  I was a teacher for 15 years and I’ve had a lot of memorable kids, but I still don’t think I could do what this author does. Her job seems incredibly draining and incredibly rewarding at the same time. The kids seem absolutely amazing, but I couldn’t continue to deal with the bureaucracy of teaching and public school. It was a nightmare. Highly recommend for teachers and fans of movies like Sister Act 2, To Sir With Love, or Dangerous Minds.
• 
  David Thomas

  A graphic memoir depicting a school year in the life of a teacher at a "second chance" high school, somewhere devoted to at-risk kids who just weren't succeeding at traditional schools. I was genuinely happy to see some of the troubled kids succeed, even if a few of them could be buttheads at times. Sadly I have to dock it a full star for bad art.
• 
  Olivia Shirley

  Fine. If you don’t have an understanding of the complexities of urban education, I’m sure you would find this more interesting than I did. There’s also a weird thing with a teacher making a profit off of their students stories. It’s in my classroom now so I’m curious what my kids would think if any of them choose to pick it up.
• 
  Stef

  The art style made it difficult to differentiate between the students, but by the end, I was invested in all of them and their success. So much thanks to teachers like Wilde who go the extra mile and truly care and are able to help students in a real, life-changing way.
• 
  Maja

  Eye-opening and moving look at what it means to be both a teacher and a student in a high school for troubled youth.
  Innovative graphic language and lovely narration, evokes sympathy. Read it all in one sitting and would gladly do so again.
• 
  Dinah

  It's hard to capture the chaos, triumph, and heartache of the day to day as a teacher in NYC. This graphic memoir has some moments of it, for sure.
• 
  Leon

  It was indeed a graphic look at high school.
• 
  Sam

  A good and interesting read but I found the formay hard to read sadly. Still, I'm happy to have read it.
• 
  Nicolas Hoffmann

  Story of a struggling teacher in a second chance school. Very person, and fine, didn't grab me.
• 
  Kerfe

  I actually first read this book a few years ago, but for some reason I never reviewed it. I enjoyed it just as much the second time around.
  
  The graphic novel is a perfect format for a story about teenagers. Simultaneous action, intensity, immediacy--all easy to convey. Based on her experiences teaching in a last-chance high school in NYC, Lisa Wilde has created vivid characters and stories (composites of those of her actual students) that accurately reflect the highs and lows, the complications and obstacles, that these young people deal with on a day-to-day basis. Little things can loom large when you and your family are already living on the edge.
  
  It's an emotional roller coaster, funny and sad at the same time.
  
  Wilde's delicate balancing act as a teacher is also important. The federal, state and city governments each have their own agendas. The students need to pass not only their classes, but their tests. But they also need to find meaning in their studies, a reason to keep on when it would be so much easier to give up. They need to learn to think for themselves, to create and speak with their own voices. That can't occur in an atmosphere of test prep all the time. But they need to pass the tests...
  
  As a middle class parent, I assumed high school graduation as a given for my children, a step on the way to higher education. For the students in Wilde's school, a high school diploma is a real cause for celebration, a hard-won accomplishment. It's clear that all of these young people, even the most troubled, have unique gifts to offer to the world. Are we paying attention?
  
  "Yo Miss" is a wonderful place to start.
• 
  Alicia

  While I'm not the biggest fan of the design/illustration for this graphic novel, it gets the job done and I can understand some of the graphic tendencies.
  
  The value of this graphic novel is diverse- everyone from first year to thirty-year veteran teachers, urban teachers, students, education policy makers, legislators-- everyone! With a bit of political/social commentary on the education system (in New York State nonetheless) as it stands is important for non-educators to read. Similarly, to see the types of students that can benefit from an alternative placement is an eye-opener as well and the need for non-standard education because of a multitude of student needs: physical, emotional, mental issues, family problems, poverty, resource scarcity, etc. PLUS the struggles and needs of their teachers who give their all to be a social worker and teacher, to be equally supportive and hard and make students see the value in their education. There were a few points where students responded that they "would do it for you", and many times the relationship between the teacher and student is key. The slice of life is priceless and encouraging as much as devastating to understand the every day struggle.
• 
  Nikki in Niagara

  This is the author's memoir of her first year of teaching English at an inner-city second chance charter high school in 1997. I'm a big proponent of all alternate schooling methods so, of course, found the topic very interesting. It's a good story and well-told. I really liked how the author brought in big subjects such as teen pregnancy, disabilities, gang members, a student on parole but never made an issue out of any of them. These were simply facts of the student's lives that the teachers/school worked with, not around, to make sure the students got an education. (I'm so sick of reading teen books which seem to be first and foremost about an ISSUE with a story woven around it.) A good job on the writing though I found about 2/3s of the way through my interest waning. The author makes clear early on some will graduate, but not all and I was getting tired with not much happening in the plot but repetition. The art is raw, hand drawn and lettered with a strange choice of changing the black and white drawings to ... maroon. This simply made the book hard on the eyes and hard to read, lowering the professionalism of the overall look. Good story, but could have been better with an edit and better final presentation.
• 
  Wendy

  There is a lot to like about this book, especially as a fellow teacher of struggling students. It was in the YA section of my library, but it is very much the teacher's perspective.
  
  I had little trouble keeping the individual characters straight, and knowing they were composites also created more detachment. Also, this is embarrassing, but I don't really "get" a lot of poetry, and the student poems featured here did nothing for me.
  
  On the other hand, I enjoyed the mixed-media feel to the artwork, with charts, different styles of art, occasional moments of surrealism, and creative methods of adding narration all mixed in with traditional panel comics. The view inside a teacher's mind, featured on the cover also, was perfect, as was the contrast between two different class discussion of Streetcar Named Desire. Wilde writes from an insider's perspective, and her talent and creativity are impressive. Yes, it's yet another entry into the
  "Nice White Lady" ouvre, but Wilde doesn't fool herself that she's her students' savior, which may be why she lasted longer in education than her more famous counterparts.