When Paul Richer, 21, walked into the dark brick junior high school in little (pop. 962) Riceville, Iowa last fall, he intended to throw everything he had into this first teaching job. A burly man with a Phi Beta Kappa key from the State University of Iowa, he had long wanted to teach. He had an irrepressible enthusiasm for literature and a head full of ideas on how to put his enthusiasm across. But no sooner had he completed his first few weeks than Paul Richer became the most controversial figure in town.
There was no doubt that his seventh-and eighth-graders idolized...
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