For me, seeing my second-grade teacher, Miss Hertz, tooling out of the Piggly Wiggly parking lot in a zippy little roadster felt like I had suddenly been made privy to secret knowledge. It wasn't so much that I didn't think Miss Hertz and my other teachers were real people with families and homes, who might enjoy a cocktail in the evening and laugh at an off-color joke just like all the other adults in my life—it was that I had never bothered to imagine them playing any other roles than the ones they had been assigned in the movie of my life. They might as well have been Disney animatronics booted up by the school's custodial crew every morning before we kids arrived. Seeing Miss Hertz in her mirrored aviators and loose ponytail was like tuning in one evening to find Racer X, opens a new window had taken over for Walter Cronkite, opens a new window on the news. It was a new and interesting shift in my perception of reality.
Later, in graduate school, where it wasn't uncommon for students and faculty to party together, I found that interactions with profs always had a hint of the uncanny valley for me. No matter how many solo cups they—or I—had downed, they always seemed just a little…off, like they had sent a very good 3D printed replica of themselves to the party in their stead. It wasn't until after I had taught for a while that I figured out why this was: they weren’t doing their teacher act.
I don't think most of us realize just how performative teaching is. Sure, there's all the paper grading and lesson planning, but when a teacher is in front of a class, they are as much a performer as Lady Gaga onstage. They take on a persona as soon as they step into the classroom. Most likely, they don't even realize it themselves, but the smile is usually a little brighter, the voice a little deeper, and their reactions a little bigger, so the folks in the back row get the 
full effect. They will assert authority over the subject and, if necessary, the class, in ways they may seldom do in life outside the classroom. Veteran educators will have at least a few emergency lesson plans that they can crank up whenever a field trip is rained out or their lecture notes are lost in the cloud. These tend to be fun, unexpected things, and the teacher will know exactly which funny asides work and where to pause to let students catch up. If that is not performance, I don't know what is.
Which is probably why stories about teachers, whether told by the teachers themselves or imagined by novelists, have a special kind of pull. They let us peek behind the curtain and see the human being who has been inhabiting that role all along.
I think it is no accident that Jennifer Mathieu, a twenty-year veteran of the classroom, chose The Faculty Lounge as her first book written specifically for an adult audience. Her previous seven novels were written for the young adult market. The Faculty Lounge is at least in part a peek behind the wizard's curtain, which, from the wizard's perspective, is not something they would willingly give to the folks they absolutely need to buy into the illusion. A large part of the pleasure of reading Mathieu's novel for me is a voyeuristic one—we get to see teachers, and imagine our own former teachers, as rounded characters with flaws, quirks, and all the other characteristics teachers, as a rule, don’t let their students see.
This fall, readers across nine counties will come together to do just that. The Faculty Lounge is the 2025 Gulf Coast Reads selection—a book chosen each year to spark a region-wide conversation. Throughout October, libraries and partner organizations will host discussions, programs, and, yes, even an author appearance by Jennifer Mathieu, opens a new window herself. It’s a chance to share the experience of reading a book that opens doors into lives we think we know but rarely get to see in full.
Join Us for an Evening with Jennifer Mathieu
Monday, October 13, 6:30-8:30 p.m. @ West University Branch Library
THIS IS A FREE EVENT. REGISTER NOW, opens a new window
Explore all Gulf Coast Reads Events
And if The Faculty Lounge leaves you wanting more stories from the other side of the teacher’s desk, we’ve gathered a list of memoirs by and about educators. Like Mathieu’s novel, these books remind us that teachers are never just their job titles—they’re whole, complicated, fascinating humans.
Memoirs by and about Teachers
Add a comment to: Teachers, Unmasked: Memoirs by and about Educators