No one ever said it was easy working as an educator, and the true stories collected here prove that the profession is stranger and funnier than we even supposed. Included here are witty accounts of the flamboyant swimming instructor who spent his spare time fighting bears, the American teacher who sued her own pupils for not paying attention in her lesson, the Italian fencing master who trained the cast of Shakespeare's Hamlet premiere, and the teacher who paved the way for Al Capone's crime empire.