Ep4: Mike Henrich shares his heart and humor in “Teacher Boy” at Elaine’s Literary Salon

February 15, 2025: Meet Mike Henrich is a career educator who taught a variety of subjects to a variety of learners in his Southeast Virginia hometown, in the South Pacific, and in the DC area. He has been in the classroom for over 40 years as a student and teacher and keeps pointing to the splendor and potential of education even while kids, society, and he changes.

His powerful 2023 book, Teacher Boy, is a collection of personal anecdotes from his 1980s childhood, ’90s adolescence, and a teaching career that started at the turn of the millennium and continued through the pandemic.

“Teacher Boy pierces through mediocre teachers, opinionated onlookers, layers of bureaucracy, swarming technology, an expectant society, ego and self-doubt, to defend the value of education even if it wasn’t perfect for any of us,” Mike explains. “Teacher Boy catalogues my own education, celebrates the potential a teacher can have to serve or fail families, turns a critical eye to his own field, and claps back at school critics.”

In fact, this Teacher Boy was a substitute, private tutor, homebound teacher, middle and high school teacher, and behavior interventionist in his hometown and halfway around the world, in the wealthiest and poorest parts of the globe.

“If I’m honest, I’ll tell you that Teacher Boy is a personal and professional coming of age story,” Mike admits. “In peddling information to others, I found universal truth in the students he treasured, and being their teacher finally allowed me to learn.”

Click here to buy Teacher Boy.

Be sure to watch today’s episode of Elaine’s Literary Salon, hosted by award-winning author and restauranteur Jeffery James Higgins. And have a meal, a martini, and an inspiring author-filled evening when you attend all of the Literary Salon events at Elaine’s in Old Town Alexandria, VA: elaines-restaurant.com.