Mostly, you’ll laugh out loud, and shake your head at the antics of these students as they find their way from being labeled unteachable to proving just how teachable, and lovable, they really are. It could also be paired with “The Junkyard Wonders” by Patricia Polacco for a discussion of how students learn differently, and again- fairness in education. If you like to root for the underdog, this book is for you. Forgiveness would be another discussion point, and how it’s not always easy to do, even when the other person is trying really hard to make amends.

There could also be great discussion on the concept of fairness, and how our actions have unintended consequences for others. It would promote so much discussion on how we all learn differently and have different strengths and talents. This would be a great book for a read-aloud or literature circles in the upper elementary grades.

The way this narrative works is that all the various outsiders comprising the kids in room 117 are going to learn a lesson in collaborative strategy. Is any child really “unteachable?” Or do they just need the right teacher to come along and figure out their talents and strengths, and help them overcome their challenges? For that matter, can the right group of students help a burned-out, counting the days until early retirement teacher remember why he got into teaching in the first place? Barnstorm is an unteachable because as an athlete out for the season due to injury he has become for the first time in his life a student who needs to be taught.

The unteachables book