ABSTRACT
Sally London didn’t go into teaching the traditional way. She began in her 30s, a¢er a successful career as a geologist, but now she was treading water as a beginning teacher, struggling to teach science to seventh graders. She knew her subject well, and she was developing teaching competence, but Sally was challenged by the dierent needs of her students. Even though Sally perceived her pupils as equally deserving of the best education, their needs and backgrounds were extremely diverse. Beyond the dierence in their ethnicity, race, and socio-economic status, many of them had been assigned labels that set them apart from others. Gi¢ed, ADHD, specic learning disabilities, and ELLs were all mixed among the bunch of awkward adolescents that comprised her fourth-period class.
