Because Teaching Matters provides teachers with a realistic depiction of today s classrooms while highlighting the enormous impact they have on everyday lives. The second edition presents material around a framework of five professional commitments that allows them to make sense of what it means to be a teacher. A new critical-thinking framework helps them manage the content better and retain more of what they learn. Increased coverage of diversity and technology is integrated throughout the chapters. A new chapter has also been added on the history and philosophy of education. This book will help teachers make decisions and take responsibility for the consequences of those choices.

The concept of making choices as a teacher and taking responsibility for the consequences of those choices is a central theme of this book. It is organized around five professional commitments that, taken together, are essential if teaching is going to make a difference in the lives of students. This innovative organizing structure uses the five commitments to help readers think in a more informed way about issues that affect their initial concerns when making the decision to teach as well as their professional development as teachers.

"Because Teaching Matters provides teachers with a realistic depiction of today's classrooms while highlighting the enormous impact that teaching has on everyday lives. The book is organized around five professional commitments --learning from multiple sources of knowledge, using the curriculum responsibly, embracing diversity, meeting the needs of individual students, and contributing actively to the profession -- It helps teachers make decisions and take responsibility for the consequences of those choices, emphasizing that the decision to teach is a serious one that can be extremely rewarding. This revised edition focuses on diversity throughout, with new material on the latest academic content standards, teaching students with disabilities, modern classroom technology, the role of legislation and federal funding, and other updates to reflect the current context of teaching and teacher preparation. The updates also account for new societal and educational contexts post-pandemic. While not entirely about the pandemic, the new edition serves prospective teacher candidates who themselves have experienced a disruption in their PK-12 educations because of the pandemic. Therefore, the book addresses the ruptures it has caused on multiple fronts, many of which touch on the education system and have affected every student, teacher, and family"--

First Published in 2013. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.