Passionate Teaching in Troubled Times

Lessons for Today's Classroom

By: Robert L. Fried

“A deeply felt meditation on the vital role of passion in good teaching”—with useful samples, interviews, and advice (Anthony Rotundo, The Washington Post)

Every teacher can be a passionate teacher—one who engages young people in the excitement of learning and ideas—if teaching is not undermined by the ways we "do business" in schools. In this book, a professor draws on the voices and firsthand accounts of teachers in urban, rural, and suburban classrooms to provide educators everywhere with useful advice and ‘things to try'. Their successes will inspire you to grow and maintain your own passion for teaching in the face of day-to-day obstacles.

This edition of The Passionate Teacher also includes a new chapter for teachers beginning their careers.

Critic reviews

"A deeply felt meditation on the vital role of passion in good teaching . . . stuffed with . . . samples, stories, interviews with good teachers, lists of things to try. . . . Fried writes about education with passionate, engrossing pragmatism. As a teacher, perhaps the highest compliment that I can pay this book is that I'm planning right now to try out some of its suggestions." —Anthony Rotundo, The Washington Post

"Convinces us of the value of passion by actually taking us into classrooms where teachers dissolve student disinterest not with 'tricks' but rather with an authentic commitment to what and who they are teaching." —Teacher Magazine

"A superb book, better than any other of its kind." —Seymour Sarason, author of Teaching as a Performing Art

"My ideal of a 'how-to' book." —From the foreword by Deborah Meier, author of The Power of Their Ideas

"The best blend of theory and practice I've found. My colleagues and I use it in workshops for new and veteran teachers, and as a cornerstone of a new master's program. The new chapter is an exciting addition to an already great book." —Randy Wisehart, high school teacher and college instructor, Earlham College