Teaching with Heart: Lessons Learned in a Classroom

Why are so many teachers leaving the profession? They’re burned out; they feel disrespected, and unsupported. After teaching remotely during a pandemic, they’re returning to classrooms with under-socialized and sometimes out-of-control kids. What to do?

Teaching with Heart chronicles the journey of a journalist-turned-teacher determined to make teaching work—despite its difficulties. Peek into Madame Nelson’s classroom to see her trying to reach teens who dance, cry, and hit each other in French class; administrators who laud the latest pedagogical trends and testing regime; and parents who sometimes support—and sometimes interfere with—their children’s education. Meet colleagues who save her from quitting, and her children who provide advice. Along the journey, she evolves from an aloof elitist into an empathetic listener to all sorts of teens.

Isn’t it time we create schools in which teachers want to stay and new ones enter? Without committed teachers, how can we prepare students to run our world? Teaching with Heart illuminates why it’s so hard to hold on to classroom teachers these days—and what can be done to better the situation.