176 Days: A Teacher's Diary of an Unexpected Year

In August 2022 Chicago, veteran teacher Greg Michie unlocks Room 201 and feels the hallway hum like an overcharged beehive. Overnight he has shifted from guiding a single seventh-grade crew to steering all 425 kindergarten-through-eighth-grade minds—a dizzying pivot that turns each 50-minute prep period into a fresh tightrope walk. 176 Days captures that unexpected year through nimble daily entries where inquisitive five-year-olds ponder meteors, weary eighth graders test boundaries, and Michie’s own doubts spar with gritty hope. The diary becomes a living case study in Education Equity, showing how resource gaps and scheduling whims still shape who gets the quiet space to think before answering. Yet the children’s jokes, hallway dances, and candid confessions also model Health Equity in practice—classrooms as sanctuaries where laughter and honest tears repair frayed spirits. Reviewers from Columbia to Chicago hail the vignette style as a “pick-me-up” for burnt-out educators, while scholar Gholdy Muhammad celebrates its power to help us laugh, cry, heal, and wonder. Will Michie’s raw chronicle spur you to re-imagine your own teaching toolkit, or will another school year drift by in autopilot? Step into Room 201, feel the chalk dust swirl, and learn more to witness how ordinary days build extraordinary change.