This is a book that will rest on the nightstand of many teachers, quietly inspiring new ways of thinking about research in their lives and their relationships with other teachers. And in those still, private moments, very public changes in curriculum and school communities will be born.

—Brenda Power

Engaging Teachers was written by classroom teachers from across the grades in celebration of the tremendous potential that comes from a deeper kind of professional knowing. These teachers worked individually and collaboratively to explore the issues of time, methods, and relationship in an effort to develop meaningful and organic research practices. Their book confirms that it's okay to begin the process of more thoughtful and purposeful inquiry from exactly where you are. It also encourages you to develop your own study methods and analysis strategies, proving what a creative and challenging venture teacher inquiry can be.

These essays present an honest and untarnished view of the tensions that emerge between teachers and their university partners, the problems involved in balancing teaching and research agendas, the conflicts that need to be negotiated as groups of teachers find their own way into the research questions that matter most to them. Along with offering support through example and encouragement through invitation, this book represents a model of organic inquiry. It proposes that those who take up the initiative of teacher research act upon the critical need to relate the practices of teaching and research in ways that complement and stimulate both aspects of this new professionalism.