Includes bibliographical references (p. 423-434) and indexes.

1. Teaching: A Career that Makes a Difference Commitment #1: Using Multiple Sources of Knowledge to Learn to Teach 2. Putting What You Already Know about Teaching into Perspective 3. Learning to Teach: What Does It Mean? Commitment #2: Using the Curriculum Responsibly 4. Deciding What To Teach 5. More than What is Taught: School as a Social Institution Commitment #3: Crossing Your Own Familiar Borders to Embrace Diversity 6. Teaching Students Whose Race, Class, Culture or Language Differs from Your Own 7. Teaching Students with Disabilities Commitment #4: Meeting the Needs of Individual Students within the Context of the Classroom and School 8. Organizing Good Schools and Good Classrooms 9. How Governing and Financing Schools Influence Teachers' Work Commitment #5: Contributing Actively to the Profession 10. From Job to Profession. A Work in Progress 11. Ethical and Legal Issues in the Work of Teaching 12. Becoming A Teacher. New Visions and Next Steps

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.