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Chapter Overview
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FOCUS QUESTIONS

  1. What are the advantages and the disadvantages of being a teacher?
  2. What are the satisfactions—and the complaints—of today's teachers?
  3. Is teaching a “good fit” for you?
  4. Can we consider teaching to be a profession?
  5. How has teacher preparation changed over the years?
  6. Are America's schools a secret success story?
  7. What steps can you take now on the road to becoming a teacher?

CHAPTER PREVIEW

This chapter looks at classroom life through the teacher's eyes. You may be thinking: I have spent years in a classroom, watching teachers and what they do. If there is one thing I know, it is teachers and teaching! But during your years in the classroom, you have looked at teaching through “student-colored glasses,” a unique but somewhat distorted view, like looking through a telescope from the lens that makes everything tiny instead of large. In this chapter, we will view the classroom from the teacher's side of the desk, a very different way of looking at school.

Some of you are taking this course because you want to learn more about schools and teaching. This text will answer many of your questions and offer useful information. We know that many of you taking this course are considering a major decision: Do I want to be a teacher? This first chapter is especially designed to help you answer that question.

The chapter is also about “us.” Yes, us. We are now a team, this textbook, the authors, and you. When your authors were students, we did not much like our textbooks. They were far from exciting to read. By extension, we feared that we might not like teaching. In the end, we loved teaching—but still hated our textbooks. We want this textbook to be different—to be not only informative but also enjoyable. This first chapter offers us the opportunity to introduce the textbook and, in a sense, to introduce ourselves.

Welcome to our classroom.








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