With a student population that is 86 percent poverty-level and 96 percent Hispanic and Black, and with test scores in the bottom quartile of the nation, Washington Irving School is typical of Chicago and other urban school systems in the U.S. But this school is attempting change, tossing aside excuses and asking teachers to re-examine how they teach. It hasn't been easy.

Teach Me! introduces you to these veteran teachers from grades one through eight, many with twenty to thirty years in the system. This is the story of their exhilaration and exhaustion, their rising enthusiasm tempered with self-doubt, as they slowly let go of familiar, but ineffective, methods and embrace techniques that involve and excite children about learning.

It is also the story of the kind of environment, support, and leadership needed to lead teachers successfully through this kind of transformation and the reaction among students and parents to this change.

Any educator struggling with failing students or teacher shortages will benefit from what Teach Me! has to say.