Each of your students has her or his own needs, skills, capacities, hopes, and dreams. The school has its own goals and plans to attend to, and society makes its own demands as well. Although there is always more to learn and more to know as a teacher, the heart of teaching is a passionate regard for students. The work of teaching involves struggling to see each student in as full and dynamic a way as possible, and simultaneously to create environments that nurture and challenge the wide range of students who are actually there in our classrooms. It is important that teachers fight the atomization, isolation, and alienation endemic in teaching.
Teachers typically find themselves alone in classrooms with too many children and too little time.
When teachers talk to other teachers, it is usually a brief encounter at lunch or during a break, and the talk is rarely about the content and conduct of their work. The isolation is sometimes defended as a precious and guarded autonomy, but it can easily turn to disconnection and burnout. Rather, they are teacher-run, small, informal, and personal. They are teachers talking to teachers about teaching. These networks are promising because they require no special expertise or equipment or package.