A Liberal's Search for Truth, Justice and the American Way

If you'd like a deep peek inside the education industry, this is the book for you. Mr. Williams worked at school districts in an urban environment, a rural one, and in the suburbs. He also taught in Alternative Education schools and a Jewish Yeshiva. In addition to describing these experiences, he documents one complete day in which he commuted in from the suburbs to teach high school math to inner city kids in Philadelphia, describing step by step what he did that day, his interactions with his family, the people he saw on the train and the street, and his struggles with his students. You'll know afterwards what it's like to be a teacher.Mr. Williams has a unique perspective because he survived ten years teaching with what most educators would consider "insufficient classroom management skills." Teaching is one of the few professions where the boss (the teacher) is fired when the workers (students) refuse to work. And the students know this--some of them depend on it.Here he offers his teaching philosophies as well as many of the teaching practices and unique lesson plans that enabled him to survive.

Ever wonder what it was like to be a baby boomer and live a childhood period that saw automobiles prior to seat belts, jet engines become standard, black and white TV go to color, civil rights become law, and women's lib go mainstream? Mr. Williams grew up in a middle class family where his Christian parents had five boys; he was number three. He experienced the Massachusetts magic of a 1960's era Concord upbringing--attending their schools until the end of 8th grade. Its rich Revolutionary War and early American writers history was felt in school, church, the holidays, even Cub Scouts. We felt like we helped start this great country. His family moved to Florida in the summer of 1968 and would remain while he attended Clearwater JFK Jr. HS and the Sr. High School from 9th to 12th grades. He would experience a hurricane and racial strife. Whereas Concord had one black child per grade, Clearwater had a ratio more like 1 black for every 4 whites. Desperately wanting to conform, David joined the football program, along with many other semi clueless boys. The goal back then was simply to batter the kid in front of you on the line--no one questioned this. We gleefully complied. Being woefully unprepared for college, David would start at the University of Virginia in 1972. He graduated with a BS in Mechanical Engineering--despite limited mechanical interest. Still trying to find himself, he had joined the Naval ROTC and received his commission into the Navy upon graduation. This was a whole new experience, extremely structured, with entirely new stresses that again took him mostly unawares. Additionally, and no less significantly, the author relates the unavoidable experience of watching his parents grow old and face their mortality (cancer and Alzheimer's). We should all be so brave. The quote "an unexamined life is not worth living" is credited to Socrates. Massachusetts native Henry David Thoreau both supports and refutes this concept in urging us to slow down and experience all of life in the present. Herewith, the early years of the author's stressful, trial and error, very unexamined life.

This book is one man’s observations of the American political landscape with a heavy concentration on the George W. Bush years and the saga so far of Donald J. Trump. Mr. Williams examines the issues he found particularly heinous along the way.You will like this book if you are a political junky, regardless of stripe. A liberal one will get to relive the past deceits of the George W. Bush years and witness how they are being repeated and accelerated during the reign of Trump. A conservative may not like the book but is desperate in need of the education this book provides through excerpts of philosophies and reviews of books that serve as my liberal foundation, as well as the many arguments presented via letters to editors and friends in an attempt to hold government accountable.A common theme presented is the way the main stream media, not necessarily on purpose, aids and abets the conservative agenda. And I don’t mean just the obvious propaganda spewed forth by Fox News; I mean the major networks as well as CNN and MSNBC. I devote an entire chapter to this subject. It’s shameful, and threatens our democracy.