Demoralized: Why Teachers Leave the Profession They Love and How They Can Stay offers a timely analysis of professional dissatisfaction that challenges the common explanation of burnout. Featuring the voices of educators, the book offers concrete lessons for practitioners, school leaders, and policy makers on how to think more strategically to retain experienced teachers and make a difference in the lives of students. Based on ten years of research and interviews with practitioners across the United States, the book theorizes the existence of a "moral center" that can be pivotal in guiding teacher actions and expectations on the job. Education philosopher Doris A. Santoro argues that demoralization offers a more precise diagnosis that is born out of ongoing value conflicts with pedagogical policies, reform mandates, and school practices. Demoralized reveals that this condition is reversible when educators are able to tap into authentic professional communities and shows that individuals can help themselves. Detailed stories from veteran educators are included to illustrate the variety of contexts in which demoralization can occur. Based on these insights, Santoro offers an array of recommendations and promising strategies for how school leaders, union leaders, teacher groups, and individual practitioners can enact and support "re-moralization" by working to change the conditions leading to demoralization.

Formerly a SkyLight publicationThis one-of-a-kind handbook presents the results of professional research in an accessible, readable format, featuring teaching strategies and real-life practices that work in today's schools.

This book is about the energy, substance, hope, and determination that excellent teachers bring to the rhythm of classrooms every day, year in and year out. Balli offers experiences and important lessons about teaching and classroom life at all grade levels, illuminating the perspective of both teachers and students. Knitting teacher and student voices together, this book inspires practicing teachers and those who are learning to teach, with universal insights drawn from elementary school, middle school, high school, and college. Making a Difference in the Classroom is organized into three parts, focusing first on teacher-student relationships, then on how excellent teachers finesse the substance and action of classrooms, and finally on the inestimable worth of teachers as diverse individuals with unique talents to offer as gifts for students to unwrap and experience day after day.