Sign-In
Cart
Going to School: A Life in Education
Paperback
Publisher Price: $16.99
Publisher: Dr. Jim Sebert
Published: Jul 1 2026
Pages: 180
Weight: 0.55
Height: 0.41 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
For thirty years, Dr. Jim Sebert has lived a life entirely in education, as a student who genuinely loved school, then as a teacher, principal, and superintendent across communities in Wisconsin. Going to School is the story of that journey: shaped by parents who taught him kindness and reliability, and a coach who walked up a driveway one summer afternoon; an act of attention that changed the course of a life.
It is a story that passes through classrooms and superintendent's chairs, through a global pandemic, a tragic boat accident, thirty-seven community meetings about facility consolidation, and a Halloween party where a young man met the woman who would become his wife. Along the way, it asks questions every educator and every leader will recognize: How do you make hard decisions when there are no good options? How do you hold the line when the community is divided? How do you stay the kind of person you set out to be when the work tries to change you?
Going to School is honest about the moments that tested him, and about how each one made him a better leader. It is open about failure, gentle about grace, and clear-eyed about what it actually takes to run a school district in the modern era.
It is a book for educators at every level, but it is also for anyone who has ever been shaped by a classroom, a gymnasium, or a hallway conversation that changed the way they saw themselves or the world. It is for the teacher who wonders whether the work is worth it. For the principal in a difficult year. For the superintendent at the end of a hard week. For the parent who wants to understand what is happening inside their child's school. For the new board member trying to make sense of an unfamiliar world. And for the reader who simply loves a good story about a life well lived in service of others.
Throughout, Dr. Sebert reflects on the people, decisions, and moments that have defined his career: the coach who came to the driveway, the woman behind everything, the difficult conversations he learned to have, the standing ovations and the late-night phone calls, and the superintendency as a lifestyle. He writes with the warmth of someone who has loved this work every day, and the candor of someone who knows that loving it is not the same as being good at it; that those two things have to be earned each and every year.
This is Dr. Sebert's first book. It reads like a long conversation with a trusted colleague nearing the end of a long career, full of stories worth carrying forward.
I have been going to school my entire life. It has been an incredible gift.
Also from
Sebert, Jim
Also in
Biographies General
Bluesland: Portraits of Thirteen Major American Blues Masters
Pete Welding (ED.)
Toby Byron (ED.)
Hardcover
Karl Popper - The Formative Years, 1902 1945: Politics and Philosophy in Interwar Vienna
Hacohen, Malachi Haim
Hardcover
The Children of Athena: Greek Intellectuals in the Age of Rome: 150 Bc0-400 AD
Freeman, Charles
Hardcover
Make It a Double: From Wretched to Wondrous: Tales of One Woman's Lifelong Discovery of Whisky
Sackier, Shelley
Hardcover
The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race
Isaacson, Walter
Hardcover
An Enemy Such as This: Larry Casuse and the Fight for Native Liberation in One Family on Two Continents Over Three Centuries
Correia, David
Hardcover
Agents of Chaos: Thomas King Forçade, High Times, and the Paranoid End of the 1970s
Howe, Sean
Hardcover
The Secret Life of the Savoy: Glamour and Intrigue at the World's Most Famous Hotel
Williams, Olivia
Paperback
The Badger: The Life of Bernard Hinault and the Legacy of French Cycling
Fotheringham, William
Paperback
The Devil's Diary: Alfred Rosenberg and the Stolen Secrets of the Third Reich
Kinney, David
Wittman, Robert K.
Paperback
Florence Kelley and the Nation's Work: The Rise of Womens Political Culture, 1830-1900
Sklar, Kathryn Kish
Paperback
The Rise and Fall of Anne Boleyn: Family Politics at the Court of Henry VIII
Warnicke, Retha M.
Paperback
A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II
Purnell, Sonia
Hardcover
Living with a Wild God: A Nonbeliever's Search for the Truth about Everything
Ehrenreich, Barbara
Paperback
Seafaring Women: Adventures of Pirate Queens, Female Stowaways, and Sailors' Wives
Cordingly, David
Paperback
The Butcher, the Embezzler, and the Fall Guy: A Family Memoir of Scandal and Greed in the Meat Industry
Cherington, Gretchen
Paperback
Gift of Power: The Life and Teachings of a Lakota Medicine Man
Erdoes, Richard
Lame Deer, Chief Archie Fire
Paperback
My Own Devices: True Stories from the Road on Music, Science, and Senseless Love
Dessa Wander
Hardcover
Nobody's Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice
Giuffre, Virginia Roberts
Hardcover
How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay: Tips and Tricks That Kept Me Alive, Happy, and Creative in Spite of Myself
Lawson, Jenny
Hardcover
Family of Spies: A World War II Story of Nazi Espionage, Betrayal, and the Secret History Behind Pearl Harbor
Kuehn, Christine
Hardcover
Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young: A Fugitive Family in the Revolutionary Underground
Dohrn, Zayd Ayers
Hardcover
A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon
Fedarko, Kevin
Paperback
Catch the Devil: A True Story of Murder, Deception, and Injustice on the Gulf Coast
Colloff, Pamela
Hardcover
Through Mom's Eyes: Simple Wisdom from Mothers Who Raised Extraordinary Humans
Jones, Sheinelle
Hardcover