The publisher is, The University of Chicago Press, copyright 1999, by The University of Chicago. This book has attempted to answer a number of questions about how to teach, on the assumption that its readers are people with enough commitment to the academic life to want to teach well. That is a question every teacher must answer, in some measure, alone. But we offer a few observations, drawn from our own experiences, on this central issue of academic life. One of the rewards of good teaching, therefore, should be the knowledge that we have instilled modes of thinking, created intellectual passions, promoted forms of tolerance and understanding, and, of course, increased knowledge.
Teaching has rewards to teachers themselves as well.
The community of education and scholarship can be a lonely place at times, and can seem isolated fro the larger world. The wonder and excitement that we sometimes encounter in our students when we help them discover a new area of knowledge is rewarding to us, in part, because it helps us recapture that same wonder and excitement, which is continually with our grasp if we do not lose the will to find it. Good teaching, finally is valuable to society - in ways both obvious and obscure. Everyone agrees that education is important, and that effective teaching is the key to education. But education has another, less immediately visible, social value.