odd Bradley, the 25-year-old author of “School Daze: The Diary of a First-Year Washington, D.C., Teacher,” did not mention in an interview that he is currently writing two more books.
“That doesn’t surprise me at all,” said Devin Bradley, Todd Bradley’s older brother. “He’s very quiet and reserved most of the time.” That’s part of what makes Bradley’s books such a good read, he said. “He kind of opens up when he writes it and talks about things that he usually doesn’t say.”
Todd Bradley grew up living off Bradley Boulevard in Potomac. He walked to school at Our Lady of Mercy and later attended Mater Dei and Gonzaga. All three Bradley sons were dedicated athletes.
“We all played football, basketball and baseball growing up. Basically all we did was play sports after school and get enough homework done that we got through school,” Devin Bradley said.
Todd Bradley does not claim ever to have been a great scholar. But as a college student at Loyola University in New Orleans, he took off, both as a student and as a writer. His e-mail musings tended to get forwarded on among friends and family.
“The easiest way for me to describe him is he’s the funniest person I know,” Devin Bradley said. “He’s a quiet person, but when he does talk or write a story or come up with something, it’s usually really funny.”
So it was no surprise when a book began to emerge from Todd Bradley’s job as a grade-school teacher after he graduated from college.
“It just came about. … I would tell my friends or my brothers about what’s going on, and eventually I just started writing it down,” Bradley said. “It was like reliving grade school for the second time but you could actually remember everything that happened.”
After two years of teaching at “Our Lady of Victory of MacArthur Boulevard” (Bradley doesn’t name the actual school in the book but said that locally, “everybody pretty much figures it out”), Bradley moved to North Carolina and took some classes in real estate. But now he’s moving back to the area and has his sights set on writing full time.
As for returning to teaching, “I would definitely think about doing it at a higher level,” he said. “I thought about getting a master’s or something like that and teaching in college or even high school. Or if I’m a millionaire, I’ll become like a gym teacher.”