Title: The ABCs of Public Education: Abuse, Bullying, and Corruption: A Story of Institutionalized Mobbing in Education
Author: Dr. John J. Pepi Sr.
Publisher: ‎ Mascot Books
ISBN: ‎ 164543415X
Pages: 256
Genre: Biography / Memoir / Self-Help
Reviewed by: David Allen

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Sometimes a memoir can be thought of as therapy, a bibliotherapy exploiting the pain and suffering transmuted into something higher, into words the writer and their audience can live by.

Such is Dr. John J. Pepi Sr.’s The ABCs of Public Education: Abuse, Bullying, and Corruption, A Story of Institutionalized Mobbing in Education.  This is a memoir about the author’s upbringing in Worcester, Massachusetts, about his career as teacher and education specialist, and about his ultimately masterful handling of the violent exigencies of bullying and school and community life. This includes a soul-searing round in the courtroom. His Pepi and Associates, LLC, is one great outcome of this — a center devoted to teaching, training, healing.

Pepi grew up in a Catholic home, taught all levels between kindergarten and secondary school, and achieved a doctorate in Education Leadership. His parents left school after eighth grade. In the process, he had to endure levels of malevolence and bullying that broke the human dial.  Pepi describes how he was taken down by a “bunch of self-loathing narcissists.” He became the target of false rumors at work, alleging that he was stealing, was dishonest. All kinds of nastiness. His reputation was for quite some time slammed. The author writes, “Then, when you think it couldn’t get any worse, the bullying escalates to what is called ‘mobbing’ and the target is getting it from all angles. I equate behavior to the movie Jurassic Park [where] the raptors surround the target…ready to attack.”

 Bullying then morphs into ‘mobbing’ and institutionalized bullying which, as Pepi points out, is a major problem in government, public schools, hospitals, courts and police departments. He attributes his personal victory against massive interpersonal odds to the wisdom of experience; to a truly super supportive family; and to the beneficent God of his faith.

 The writer knows of what he speaks. Readers who have had similar experiences will recognize in Pepi a compassionate, very alert fellow traveler, who brings to these bullying experiences an almost Solomonic serenity in the telling. In the telling and retelling, in the miraculous transformation of raw experience into living language, Pipi succeeds. This is a must-read for all who have gone through these ordeals, and a heads-up for those who have not.  The ABCs of Public Education is extremely poignant and candid.