In this article, three educators 12 years into their careers discuss what they've learned about teaching. The educators, all of whom attended the same undergraduate institution and completed their student teaching together, begin by reflecting on their training experience and how it prepared them (or didn't) to face the daily challenges of the…

This article describes the evolution of a theoretical model of school quality drawn from my experiences teaching at different schools, pursuing graduate studies, leading district policy and support networks, and partnering with school systems, as I presently do at Bank Street College of Education. The model positions schools as the key lever for…

This article recounts my experience of developing as a teacher leader in Philadelphia. When I worked at a traditional high school, a hierarchical leadership structure frustrated my attempts to foster teacher leadership among colleagues. By building networks of teachers outside my own school, I found the relationships and opportunities that helped…

Descriptive Review, as developed by Patricia Carini and colleagues at the Prospect Center, is a process of deep observation and documentation that has proven to be an invaluable tool for teachers interested in gaining a more holistic view of their students and their work. In this article, a teacher educator and three classroom teachers share their…

This essay recounts the experience of a math teacher as she began to view herself as a teacher leader. The four different schools in which she worked over four school years and in two cities set the stage for reflection and growth that transcend school context. She shares her journey as she focused on reaching students quickly and establishing…

By conducting in-depth interviews with new teachers who are about to become full-time teachers and then reinterviewing them two years later, the author of this article presents how beginning teachers think and feel about teaching and describes the challenges they face as beginning teachers in the context of Hong Kong. The stories of the teachers,…

This essay presents a reflective account of a preservice teacher's experience in her fieldwork practice. The author, a professor in the preservice teacher's education institute, acted as a critical friend and joined in the reflection as an equal. Based on the voices of the preservice teacher and a group of primary teachers, this essay presents a…

An American teacher describes her journey to Ghana, where she worked in the summer of 2009 at the Tuskegee International School. Through recollections of the relationships she established during her time teaching math to students ages 6-16, the author reveals that her most powerful role while there was that of student rather than teacher. Focusing…

Reading several documents from the early history of Francis W. Parker School and an essay by John Dewey entitled "The Need for a Philosophy of Education" helps the author's students gain some precision in defining what otherwise remain rather loosely held opinions about the core values of the school. For most of the students, these…

Richard Locke began his first full-time job teaching seventh grade social studies at Francis W. Parker School in Chicago a quarter of a century before writing this article. Here he writes that as a young inexperienced teacher just out of college he was filled with enthusiasm and convinced that education could play a progressive role in society.…

The date is September 9, 2005. This article is set in a rural Wisconsin community, a thousand miles north of New Orleans, where Hurricane Katrina is about to make landfall. The four- and five- year- olds in Mrs. Olson's classroom have never experienced a hurricane or seen flood waters rise to cover the farms and houses they know, but they cannot…