Curious about what experienced and accomplished classroom teachers think of their profession?

The North Central Regional Educational Laboratory (NCREL) has created a Web site that presents a "rich selection of practical advice, stories, struggles, and personal victories experienced by teachers from all over the country."

Click on the link below to connect to that site. To hear the interviews you will need to have the free QuickTime (version 3 or later) plugin installed on your computer (it may already be installed). You may also just read the interviews as the Web site also provides the complete written text of the interviews.

• Voices of Teachers on Teaching

You may also be interested in knowing a little about Henry Brooks Adams. Henry Brooks Adams knew something about the important effect of "teachers" in ones life. Henry was a fourth-generation member of one of America's most distinguished families. Childhood visits to grandfather John Quincy Adams in the White House and family tales of great-grandparents John and Abigail Adams first served to personalize the facts and dates he studied at school.

Rather than becoming a maker of history like his forebearers, Henry chose to write about it and would become a noted American historian in his day. Henry was considered an effective, innovative teacher. He pioneered the use of the seminar system and encouraged student evaluations as well as the keeping of journals.

It is his account of his own education, The Education of Henry Adams, that most interests us as teachers. In his book, Adams sees his education from boyhood to adulthood as various costumes draped over him.