Second Chances Don't Grow on Trees

Second Chances Don't Grow on Trees is an interesting book by Patrick J. McLaughlin.

It's a true story that is unusual and fun-filled and very well written.

It's even more interesting as the story is all 100% true!

It relates the story of how a former teacher, one Patrick "Paddy" McLaughlin, became responsible for looking after a disparate group of people all who are troubled in one way and another, all social misfits and troubled folks who are from a tougher-than-tough working-class slum area.

He works with them and for them to find redemption and rehabilitation, proving that they were worth much more than they thought they could ever be worth. And showing what a remarkable individual he is.

His job was to get them all, by a miracle, back into gainful employment and back into productive, settled lives.

However, as Paddy cheerfully points out he had some demons in his own life which he successfully battled against.

Paddy realised that the one common factor was that they had all been failed pretty badly by the education system.

He struck on the idea of launching his own specially created homemade small college, dubbed The People's College.

The curriculum of this remarkable college also includes a strong commitment to creative writing and also on cosmology, which has helped boost their sense of self-worth.

One of the key points was that Paddy was able to establish not what his students didn't know, but what they did know. Something that had never been done before.

It's an amazing book. Which raised an interesting question in my mind. Why aren't their more People's Colleges in the country?

If you work in education, especially people with who have previously been failed by the education system, then you must buy this book.

It's published by Troubador at £9.99.