Teaching

Sonia Nieto is professor emerita at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her bestselling books include The Light in Their Eyes: Creating Multicultural Learning Communities, Why We Teach, Why We Teach Now , and What Keeps Teachers Going?. She is the recipient of the 2019 LRA Distinguished Scholar Lifetime Achievement Award and the 2021 Mass Humanities Governor's Award. She received the 2024 Multistate Association for Bilingual Education (MABE) Lifetime Service Award. In 2024, she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Alicia López is an ESL teacher and former assistant principal at Amherst Regional Middle School.

"The book is a testament to public education while providing an honest appraisal of the problems and successes inherent in the educational endeavor. As teachers and teacher educators, we found the advice for teacher educators and pre-service, novice, and experienced teachers to be relevant: understand that teaching is transactional, take time to write, respect and care for your students, find a mentor, make a friend, be kind, creative, and efficient, get outside once a day, have stamina and courage, engage in professional development, and be thoughtful and critical about curriculum and pedagogy. We encourage both in-service and pre-service teachers to read this book as they reflect on their teacher identity. As the authors note, teaching is not always easy, but it is a profession worth fighting for."—Teachers College Record