Nate Graziano's new book, Teaching Metaphors, takes readers on a harrowing journey inside darkest high school. Graziano has taught English at Pembroke Academy for 10 years. Stereotypes, he says, are "nowhere more prevalent than in high school hallways." And the "labels slapped on us often reveal some core truths about ourselves, both as individuals and as a society." The ghosts of our adolescence follow us into adulthood. Painful as it may be, a thoughtful look back at the days of hall passes, gang showers and hormonal fog may tell us something about how - or who - we are in the world today.

Graziano writes about his students - not individuals, but composites. He writes about his colleagues - again composites. He writes about attitudes toward teaching of those outside education. These are stories of life in the educational trenches. Only they're not stories, they're poems.

In "A Lesson for Land Lovers," he eats at a seaside restaurant with his wife, her friend and her friend's husband, the lawyer. When Graziano says he's a teacher, the lawyer's face becomes a plaster mask of polite."

"That's admirable," he says with a politician's smile.

"It's criminal what they pay you guys these days.

And kids don't give a sh- about learning any more . . ."

After a few drinks, the lawyer admits he thought about teaching history once. It seemed like an easy job.

". . . you pass out some textbooks, show some films,

maybe blabber a bit about The Civil War.

To top it off, I'd have my summers off.

Then I found out what they pay you guys."

"It's easier than being a fisherman," I say.

After the lawyer leaves for the bathroom, his wife starts to apologize, but Graziano stops her.

waving my hand through the fog in front of me.

We sit in silence as the last boat docks.

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