In 1977 Wayne Furlong, fresh out of university, finds himself in a job for which he is not equipped – English teacher in a tough all-boys secondary school in Melbourne, Australia. He has no learning theory, no confidence and no understanding of the people he is about to teach. He faces a world of binge-drinkers and dope-smokers, of old-school thugs and hippies, of loud music and violence. And that’s just the staffroom. For the next forty years, in Melbourne and in Hong Kong, Wayne is slowly dragged to competence by a range of characters, minority and majority, indigenous and foreign, gay and straight, violent and kind, criminal and law-abiding. They are variously abled. They are funny and sad, spiritual and materialistic. They are all as different from him as he is from them and they are all the same. This is a book for educators and student teachers, for anyone who ever went to school, and for anyone who enjoys an entertaining read.