Listening is Learning invites young teachers to seek the knowledge and advice of former teachers, retired educators, respected veterans, and fellow newcomers. It encourages them to step away from their isolated classrooms and search for the best ideas, methods, materials, insights––and seek moments of success, epiphanies, and joy.

In my writing, I also discovered ideas for 21st Century teaching emerged from the wisdom I voice in the young teachers. Good conversations generate welcome solutions, even inside this writer's head.

The conversations in each chapter center arround my teaching practices in the US, England, and the former Soviet Union. The 21st-century classroom needs to become a sanctuary, a safe place from the information craziness of the outside world. Perhaps it is the last place for children to learn the value of body language, tone, and respect for one anothers' thinking in conversation, where gestures, animation, eye contact, and voice make for deeper understanding of one another.