A diverse collection of teachers share their first experiences entering the classroom. While no two stories are alike, they all share the challenges of entering a new environment and learning to connect to students, fellow teachers and administrators.

Based on her years with the Freedom Writers, Erin Gruwell both tells a story and honors the students she worked with. This book goes beyond a teacher making a connection with students, to empowering them to change their lives.

Originally titled My Posse Don’t Do Homework, this autobiography of a marine turned teacher gets into the life of teachers and students in disadvantaged communities. It looks deeply into how to engage students in learning on their terms. LouAnne Johnson is a skilled writer who captures the details of life inside and outside the classroom.

One isn’t sure whether to laugh or cry after reading this book. Nearly 50 years later the education bureaucracies are still perpetrating some of the same crazy rules and regulations on teachers. Told with a wicked sense of humor, this book transcends time.

Set in 1940s London, this powerful book raises the same issues of race and poverty America has confronted in the classroom. Not only are the relationships between teacher and student moving, but among the adults as well.

Famous for Angela’s Ashes and ‘Tis, this memoir of Frank McCourt’s career in teaching is just as moving. As someone who started teaching outside the box and remained happily ignorant of the “right way” to teach, McCourt’s escapades speak to all of us who wish to make a difference in the lives of children.

Danielle Dadamo says:

Capturing the grit of inner-city schools, this book honestly portrays all that a new teacher needs to learn in order to effectively educate his students. It also addresses the choices a teacher must make in trying to follow the dictates from on high while meeting the needs of the students before him.

A novice teachers enters a 4th grade class in the Bronx, and faces probably the greatest challenge in his life. Yet he perseveres, and not only sheds light on the education system but his own growth as well.

A unique true story about working with troubled teenage boys at a school off the coast of Massachusetts. It’s a touching work about a community of strangers that comes together to meet a range of needs. If you thought working in a classroom was isolated, try teaching on a literal island.

Pat Conroy spent a year in 1969 teaching students who were literally cut off from their own country. A white man working with black children on an island off the coast of South Carolina, this true story addresses issues originally raised by Brown v. Board of Education. It also speaks to the relationship between teacher and students, and the community that evolves within a classroom.