Offering a window to the public and private world of the classroom, this book explores the emotions, attitudes, and experiences that children and teachers bring to school. The book first discusses values, noting that ownership confers value to experience. The book also examines the importance of teachers identifying the needs behind children's wants and maintains that by striving to understand children, we guard against pushing away the child's thoughts and feelings. Further examined are factors preventing teachers' from hearing what students are saying. The book then discusses "TeacherVision," the sum of the ways that teachers look at, feel about, and understand their students, themselves, and their teaching. How words help children master childhood tasks is discussed next. Issues related to sex are then addressed, including how parents encourage sublimation, childhood risk for sex-related problems, and how teachers' attitudes about sex impact their teaching. The book next addresses minority students, discussing the importance of teachers identifying their own biases and working to better understand others. Structure and discipline in the classroom are highlighted, and how students' and teachers' personal experience with love, its absence, or perversion influences learning is also discussed. Other topics examined include academic success and failure, students' journals, and teachers' responses to students' worrisome writing and artwork. The book asserts that attempts to protect children from pain and hardship have undermined their resiliency and left them more susceptible to feelings of inadequacy and despair. Finally, the book addresses teachers' need for recognition, rewards, and personal growth. (KB)