Stories of the Courage to Teach: Honoring the Teacher's Heart

WISE STORIES TO HONOR AND ENCOURAGE THE HEARTS OF TEACHERS

"A heartwarming collection of essays about the doubts, passions, insecurities, and life-changing moments of teachers."
-American School Board Journal

"Our history books are filled with examples of the efforts of committed education employees who helped to make this country what it is today. Stories of the Courage to Teach challenges today's teachers to see themselves not only as school employees, dedicated to serving children, but as leaders in their schools and communities."
-Bob Chase, president, National Education Association

"It's the worst-kept secret in education: the passionate and talented teacher makes more of a difference than any school policy. Yet for all the ink spilled over school reform, little gets written about what makes a great teacher tick. Stories of the Courage to Teach . . . [by Sam Intrator] bucks this trend by looking into the hearts of twenty-five effective teachers, knitting together their first-person narratives with his own ideas about great teaching."
-New York Times

"The teachers featured in this anthology have all, at various junctures, been on the verge of exhaustion, and the book is, in many ways, a sustained meditation on how they've sought to regain their emotional and spiritual strength."
-Teacher Magazine

"Stories of the Courage to Teach . . . honors teachers who struggle to rekindle their passion for teaching."
-Christian Science Monitor


About the Author
The son of two retired New York City teachers, Sam M. Intrator began teaching at Smith College in 1999 after more than a decade of teaching and administrative service in public schools in Brooklyn, Vermont, and California. Intrator teaches courses on Urban Education, Teenagers in American Culture, and the Teaching of Writing. He also founded the Smith College Urban Education Initiative--an educational outreach program that seeks to deepen students' understanding of the theoretical, practical, and human issues facing urban educators by engaging them in intensive service learning experience in urban school settings.

Intrator's books and research inquire into what it takes for teachers and students to co-create intellectually vibrant and genuinely meaningful experiences in the classroom. He has written or edited five books, including Tuned in and Fired Up: How Teaching Can Inspire Real Learning in the Classroom (Yale University Press, 2003), which was a finalist for the prestigious Grawemeyer Award in Education. Intrator has received a number of awards for his teaching and public service, including a Kellogg National Leadership Fellowship, an Ella Baker Fellowship, and the Distinguished Teacher Award from the White House Commission of Presidential Scholars. His latest effort is the co-development of Project Coach--an after-school program that prepares high school students from underserved communities to be youth sport coaches. These youth coaches then run neighborhood sport leagues in their home neighborhoods.

Intrator holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University and an MA degree from the Bread Loaf School of English.