Just when you think you have your class and your students all figured out, life happens. It is at this moment that the teacher is forced to go back to school and embark on a journey that demands brutal reflection while promising nothing. "The Lessons They Taught Me" is a poignant memoir that takes readers inside one such journey. Step inside Paul Battaglia's Advanced Placement Calculus class and take part in a rollercoaster of emotions. As the year unfolds, Battaglia finds the task of motivating and inspiring his sixteen students nearly impossible.

Quietly, a threatening storm looms over the class with little to no foreshadowing. How will this teacher with no answers, and his students, with little emotion, handle the seemingly insurmountable currents they will be forced to wade through? The peaks and pitfalls of this group are sometimes hard to dream up, yet all too real.

There is no easy out. There is also no way to see the invaluable lessons to be learned on the other side of such a devastating tragedy. Yet, they will all have to find a way.