Contemplating one's teaching has long been an essential part of teacher education. Accordingly, as an instructor of a literacy methods course with a tutoring component, I asked education majors in the class to send me weekly e-mail reflections about their teaching experiences. However, they had difficulty considering their lessons. I knew poetry…

"Listen with your heart. But, remember listening with your heart sometimes means you cannot sleep at night because you are worried about your students" (Education majors' e-mail reflection following 7th week of service-learning tutoring). "I honestly feel like I'm making a difference in these students' lives. The most difficult…

For five years I have supervised a summer literacy camp that connects graduate education majors with students from diverse ethnicities. Each summer I noted I inadequately challenged the education majors to extend their knowledge, examine their attitudes, and expand their abilities to offer culturally responsive literacy instruction to students in…