ABSTRACT
As a teacher, particularly at the elementary school level, you are faced with a huge task. Not only are you supposed to teach every subject matter area, but you also have the responsibility for helping shape young people’s lives in their formative years. What you do with your students can have a huge impact on them. This book is an attempt at creating a vision of how you can teach in ways that not only engage children in doing and learning science, but also engage children in participating in democratic communities. Engagement, in this sense, is not just participating in activities, but also participating out of a desire (including curiosity) to learn and work toward some goal. If you want to approach your teaching in the ways suggested in this book, you will face many obstacles. Some of these obstacles will be addressed in the next chapter, but the one that is the focus of this chapter has to do with your own learning as a teacher.
