The Burnout Cure: Learning to Love Teaching Again by Chase Mielke

I started reading this book in January and had to take a break on it for a while. I teach high school culinary which hadn't been a easy thing to do with the pandemic happening during my first couple of years as a high school teacher. I had had several near breaking points in the past. So when my admin team offered this book as part of a book club for CEUs, I jumped at the opportunity.

I actually started out the 2023-24 school year pretty good. Aside from being the only teacher still wearing a mask, and being like the only person at my school to still not get COVID, the first half of the year started quite well. The winter holiday came, my wife and I dodged a bullet by not going to visit in-laws who all got sick and I started out the new year forgoing ice cream and OTC pain killers that I was taking way too many of and having fatty liver issues with. Through January, I was feeling really good. And then it was February...

Around February 2nd, I started feeling pain over not just all my joints, but in the very center of my bones. Especially my femurs. But worst of all was my skin condition from having a family genetic issue. I was feeling every inch of skin over my entire body at the same time. It was this burning itch, constantly. I couldn't sleep. I was so exhausted. I was miserable. 

Thankfully, the admin team leading the book club behind about this book was so supportive. The other participants were too. I still went to the meetings, but I gave up on the book because I just couldn't concentrate on it and I felt like I could only devote my small remaining energy to lesson plans and teaching. 

Things thankfully got better at the end of March, right before spring break. I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. Put on a couple of meds that calmed things down. And I learned about my condition and started figuring out ways to cope with the disease. 

So I started up the book in April. Nope. Then my goat was stolen. I went into an obsessive depression trying to find her. Then my Siamese cat Sarakit got sick and died. Needless to say, it took a while before I was in the right frame of mind to finish this book without giving in to burnout.

I set a goal to finish this book before I started back to work for the upcoming school year. I completed the last 100 pages with just over 4 weeks to go. Based on what I read in this book, I would like to think that author Chase Mielke would consider that a success! Goal achieved. 

The Burnout Cure is aimed at teachers because Mielke is a teacher himself. Or at least he was before winning some awards and then probably became administrator as what usually happens to the good ones. Anyways, despite the education career focus, this is a book that anyone needing help and encouragement surviving a job or career that just didn't turn out as well as expected could benefit from. It gives a ton of tips on how to interact instead of just dealing with the current generation of students. Plus it offers tips on finding the good based on the worth you place on yourself instead of how you interpret your management team values you.

For example, my program and school has produced 2 consecutive district Teacher of the Year winners. (One actually was eventually named TOY for our entire state). My department boss really made me feel valueless because of those winners and how she told me once that she shouldn't have hired me based on a lesson plan that was a huge success with the entire school, despite being a tad extravagant. Anyways, as I was continuously passed over for TOY (heck, I've never ever been nominated), I began really thinking that I was a terrible teacher. That thinking got extremely worse during my massive fibro flare over the winter. Yet, my book club and my wife pointed out that with having students asking if they could put up flyers for my missing goat, asking me to come to prom and then graduation and then after graduation requesting to have lunch with me over the summer as a group with me, the only teacher, it's those kind of relationships built that is way more important than winning TOY. 

Chase Mielke, has helped me reframe my thinking. Heck, I'm looking forward to going back to work... mostly. (I mean, what teacher wants to lose their vacation days?) With my illness, plus diabetes and anxiety disorder, I feel more empowered to say no and not for reasons of being a jerk. I also feel ready to focus on the student and parent relationships instead of just checking off boxes for the admin team's approval. 

If a book like this can win over a pessimist like me, even to the point that I am recommending this book to other teachers, as well as my bride...

Look, I'm still not a fan of the extra admin work we teachers are forced to do. And I'll continue to keep a secret weapon in my arsenal: my sarcastic and slightly dark sense of humor used to disarm tense situations in my classroom. But I feel that thanks to this book,  I can feel better in myself as an educator when I decide that my caring teaching relationships with my students are far more important than filling out busy work data projects for the department of education. If you're a teacher, especially one in need of encouragement because you'll on the cusp of calling it quits or pondering early retirement, you really should give this book a read! It very well could be the life preserver you need in order to keep making a difference in the life of a child.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

Detention Comics #1

I'm heading into my third week of the new school year. In celebration or maybe a moment of blessed relief, I dug through my long boxes to give this back to school special a read.

Detention Comics is comprised of 3 stories starring the Tim Drake Robin, the Connor Kent Superboy and Guy Gardner during his stint as Warrior. For a 1996 one-shot, it's not quite your typical DC stuff. All three stories are more morality plays than gritty action adventures that have been dosed with too much testosterone. In fact, in the Superboy story, not a single punch, kick or threat is heaved in the entire thing! But let's start with Robin, since his was the opening story.

A schoolmate of Tim Drake's is being bullied- by his overbearing mother! Constantly cut from team after team, the teen finally snaps and decides to get payback against the family of the high school's head coach.

With Superboy, he's on the beaches of Hawaii trying to impress some coeds when truant officer Mack Harlin arrives to spoil the fun. It appears to be a battle of brains versus brawn. But then all bets are off when Harlin wins over the babes with his recitation of Shakespeare's sonnets.

Lastly, former teacher, Guy Gardner has been called into his former high school stomping grounds to evaluate whether the troubled institute should remain open or be turned into a mini mall. In a remake of The Substitute, which was also from '96, Guy plays the role of Tom Berenger when a trio of metahuman teens seeks revenge on a brilliant student while setting the school ablaze!

Okay, that last story sounds a little like a typical 1990s DC Comics story. But it was so full of cliches and really preachy. It read like some of the Teen Titans stuff from the 1960s and 70s in terms that whomever wrote it (Ruben Diaz, Martian Manhunter: American Secrets) didn't know how to relate to teenagers. Plus, as a teacher myself, I don't appreciate stories that paint schools as dead end hell holes. True, there's a couple of schools in the area that I don't think you could pay me enough money to teach at. But I don't think of them as helpless cases either.

The Robin story was the best of the bunch. It's interesting, and maybe even a little odd, to read a tale from Drake's early days in which he's so unprepared. I've always thought of Tim Drake as the ultimate Robin. Yet, here, he's a floundering duckling without Batman or Alfred to back him up. 

As for the Superboy story... Geez, was he really that corny back then? I'm used to a less assured Connor Kent who seems to feel out of place being a clone and also a half-Luthor clone at that. 

Oh, and having Guy Gardner turned into some sort of mutating alien arsenal. That's pretty odd. I'm glad that plot idea was retconned. Please, somebody tell that was retconned?!

For a themed one-shot, I was entertained. However, the book wasn't written for youths. And if it was, the writers, with the exception of Denny O'Neill (Detective Comics) don't seem able to write for younger audiences. I loved the logo of this one-shot. The homage to the classic Detective Comics logo done as a chalkboard was eye-catching. It obviously did it's job as it was a big part of what enticed me to buy this book.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars.

Treasure Chest (of fun & fact) Volume 22, #7 [December 1, 1966]

  Every week, When I was in elementary school, it was a  treat when the teacher passed out our copy of Weekly Reader. It was a varying age appropriate booklet about 4 or 8 pages long filled with news, facts, activities, and cartoons. Usually, there was a giveaway or some other project you could take home and complete with mom and dad. February of 2012 was a period of some sadness when the publication was bought out by Scholastic and publication ended in favor of a cheaper (digital) method.

   So why all the talk about Weekly Reader if the comic book I am reviewing is called Treasure Chest (of fun & fact)? It so turns out that this rare gem that I unearthed at one of my all-time favorite used bookstores was the Catholic version of the Weekly Reader. Published by Ohio's George A. Pflaum, Treasure Chest was given to students at parochial schools on a bi-weekly basis from 1946-1972. 

    In this issue of Treasure Chest, students would've learned about the weather balloon experiments of the Piccard Brothers, solved brainteasers using toothpicks, watch a young man fly a plane when his flying instructor has a sudden heart attack, better understand the rules of scoring in bowling, and much more. With assorted gags, riddles, and fun facts; this comic might not seem like much but for 1966 this was cool stuff.

    Treasure Chest was known to have employed comic book legends such as DC's Murphy Anderson, EC's Joe Orlando, and Graham Ingels, as well as Marvel's Joe Sinnott. This is pretty odd since, during the comics scare of the 1950s, community groups led by the Catholic church organized comic book burnings, many of which featured art by the aforementioned artists.

    Though this issue doesn't feature any work by those comic book legends, this comic is about as rare of some of their pivotal works. But if I have learned anything from the TV show Pawn Stars, rare doesn't mean valuable. This book's condition is pretty beaten up and I had to be ultra careful since the pages wanted to break away from the staples. But for an almost half-century old educational comic, it was still readable and didn't feature any pen or pencil marks on it. ( I would actually consider getting this book slabbed at a free grading event in the future to keep it better preserved.)

    An interesting look at American Catholic school life during the mid-1960s. If you are a fan of silver age books, comics aimed at children, or free publications from yesteryear, this is definitely something to look out for to add to not just a comic collection to your overall book collection as well.

   Worth Consuming

   Rating: 8 out of 10 stars.

Adventures in Cartooning: Characters in Action (Family Comic Friday)

 

When a knight errant and his trusty steed come across some seedy characters in the forest, they learn that their beloved king is in peril. At the castle, the knight discovers that the king is missing and a famous director has decided to hold casting calls for his replacement. But the knight will have to get in line to audition if he's interested in the job.

   Adventures in Cartooning: Characters in Action is one in a series of books presented by the Center for Cartoon Studies. Just what is the Center for Cartoon Studies? It's an educational institution based in Hartford, Vermont. The school's focus is on sequential art, primarily cartooning. Adventures in Cartooning is written and drawn  by James Sturm, Andrew Arnold, and Alexis Frederick-Frost: graduates from the CCS. 

    This 2013 book is like Schoolhouse Rock or Sesame Street in that they make learning fun again. Here, the series creators take a bizarre situation, such as a director turning a castle into a movie set, and add details that inform you on how to best draw characters. For Example, there are two characters that look like Albino peanuts and they can change into anything. They are also father and son. But how can you tell? Well, it's explained by the bigger 'peanut' that his son has a smaller body and larger head proportionately compared to his. 
  
   At the end of the book, the knight is taught by his friend the Magic Cartooning Elf how to draw characters. One of the steps he teaches our hero is that when drawing kids make their heads larger than their bodies. Hmm... I wonder where I heard that tip???

    Adventures in Cartooning takes the beloved art of drawing and creating and boils it down to a more age appropriate level. When I was a kid just about the only art book for those under the age of 21 was 'How to Draw the Marvel Way.' But the art was so advanced in that book for a kid the age of 11 to copy that I got frustrated that my stuff looked nothing like the experts and I gave up quick. 

   I'm not saying The Marvel Way isn't a good book. In fact it's a classic! But it's just too much for children of ages 6-13 to master. I'm ecstatic that the CSS has issued these books. But I'm a little jealous too as I wish I had books like this growing up! If your child is interested in possibly becoming a cartoonist or just want to learn how to draw in general- run, don't walk, to your computer or iPhone and order all of the books in this series. 

   Along with Characters in Action, the other books in the Adventures in Cartooning series, published by First Second are:

• Adventures in Cartooning (2009)
• Adventures in Cartooning Activity Book (2010)
• Adventures in Cartooning: Christmas Special (2012)
• Sleepless Knight  (2015)
• Gryphons Aren't So Great (2015)

Check these books out, your children and the next generation of comic book enthusiasts will thank you!

   Worth Consuming

   Rating: 10 out of 10 stars.

By the way, if you have a child or teen who is interested in one day becoming a cartoonist or involved in the comic book industry, check out the website for the Center for Cartoon Studies. It's never too soon to start getting ideas about college and they might even offer camps and have other links for getting your child on the right track to becoming the next Jack Kirby or Alex Ross.

Howard B. Wigglebottom Listens to a Friend: a Fable About Loss and Healing (A Family Comic Friday Extra)

 You're probably asking 'Hey Madman, this isn't a comic book- so why are you reviewing it?' Well, I recently won this book as a giveaway on goodreads.com. Goodreads is a website for bibliophiles to be able to track and record their reading journals and book collections. Plus, there are tons of contests to win free books- including graphic novels and comic books; which is how I got attracted to the site.

   Howard B. Wigglebottom is a kind-hearted rabbit whose friend Kiki is acting very weird. She's pushing people, yelling at them, and crying. When Howard finds out that a very special friend of her's passed away, he very much wants to make her happy again. So how can Howard and friends help Kiki without making things worse?

   This is the latest volume in the Howard B. Wigglebottom series. The books are written by Howard Binkow and Reverend Ana of the We Do Listen Foundation. The organization is comprised of educators, artists, and licensed therapists in hopes of making serious issues relatable for children. This book tackles the extremely tricky subject of death and it does a very good job of making it understandable. Even better, they work to make the subject no longer frightening and not to be treated as taboo. The back of the book even includes a study guide for parents and educators to better broach the subject with children.

    The 15 books in the Wigglebottom series can be purchased on Amazon. But to garner the full effect, I recommend you check out We Do Listen's website.There you can check out free animated versions of select titles, songs, activities, and much more. You can even buy copies of all of the books for only $6 apiece or you can get all 15 volumes for only $75!

   A great teaching guide and storybook for children under the age of 10.

   Worth Consuming

   Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.
 

Muddy Max: the Mystery of Marsh Creek (Family Comic Friday)

is a clean kid. I didn't say clean cut- he still gets into trouble (and by the end of this book, he'll get into a bunch.) No, Max is a clean kid because his mom and dad are absolutely terrified of him getting the slightest bit dirty. So why did they move to the town of Marsh Creek, a burg so muddy, it oozes everywhere from the bubbling creek that gives the township its name?
   
   As Max's parents get even more obsessive about his cleanliness, the lad and his buddy Patrick, an electrician whiz, go on the hunt for answers. The mystery as to Max's need to be clean deepens when Max discovers a picture of a baby with his parents. The kid definitely isn't Max and when his folks freak out over the picture, our young hero decides to finally get down and dirty.

   Now Max has his answer as to why his parents don't want him to get the least bit dirty as mud gives the youth incredible super powers. After a few successful missions, Max decides nothing is wrong with getting a little dirty and becomes Muddy Max. But when the mud begins to not want to come off, maybe there is some to his folks' OCD.

   Muddy Max was a great story and it's a perfect selection for Family Comic Friday. It's got a clever plot, some great dialogue, intriguing characters, and a bunch of great mysteries to solve- like how did Max get his powers and just what about that picture of the mysterious child?Not only is this book entertaining, it's also educational.

   But it's a subtle teaching method, like that in Schoolhouse Rock! Also in the back of the book is a selection of fun things for kids to learn and do. With a variety of experiments, a tech lesson on facial aging programs, and much more, the special section at the book's end makes the muddy fun come alive.
 
    There's even an art lesson in the special section. It explains some of the artist's inspiration for some of the creative things Max makes with mud. I wish some examples of the art would've been published instead of just a few websites and book references. Another thing I think is missing from this books is a writing activity. With all of the experiments in this book, an opportunity to get kids writing something like an experiment log or even a chance to create a new type of dirty superhero (or even a villain for Max) would've been appropriate. But maybe those are activities that could be added to future volumes.

     Though Muddy Max has a definite ending there's a number one on the book's spine. So hopefully there will be some sequels. This potential series is so good, it would be a shame to let it go to waste. The publisher, Amp! Comics for Kids, also offers bulk discount rates for teachers as well as teaching guides. With a subplot on bullying, this story has both a social and scientific educational impact for kids.

  An classic series in the making that I highly recommend.

    Worth Consuming

   Rating: 10 out of 10 stars.

 

American Honda Presents DC Comics' Supergirl (1984)

 

This comic was a giveaway to school children in 1984. Published by DC Comics in cooperation with American Honda and the US Department of Transportation's National Safety Belt Campaign. I vaguely remember getting one of these as a school kid. Though there was another version released around 1986, so I could be remembering that one instead. As with most educational giveaways, it's a little preachy but with thanks to a supporting role of the Man of Steel, it's also a fun read.

   The story starts with a boyfriend of Linda Danvers getting in a massive car wreck. He didn't wear a safety belt despite numerous warnings (told ya this was preachy) and now the lad is in a coma. Diagnosis is not good and now if someone doesn't make a connection with the boy soon, he's going to die.
 
    Supergirl arrives at Superman's Fortress of Solitude in hopes of using a Kryptonian dream device that should help Supergirl enter the boy's subconscious to save him. Since the victim was on his way to see a movie, Supergirl must trek through a slew of film genres. From an Indiana Jones type flick to a dungeons and dragons world, Supergirl keeps trying but just can't get the young man over the hump to recovery.

    I enjoyed this comic. Like those old school training films, I have a thing for educational comics. They have a slight cornball factor to them and often feature outdated terms and philosophies. This one involving automobile safety is pretty timeless. Although the teacher/ student discussion questions at the end of the book involve some really silly scenarios.
   
    Speaking of scenarios, there was one segment of this comic that I thought was clever. Within the dream world of the young patient, he imagines himself as a Mad Max type character in search of fuel and food. The only difference is that instead of taking place in the Australian desert, it occurs in a frigid wasteland. Why hasn't there been a Max Mad in Alaska? This would be an instant classic! (And if someone does make this film, I expect a pair of tickets to the premier and free night's stay in a classy hotel.)

   A great comic with an important message.

   Worth Consuming

   Rating: 9 out of 10 stars