LOVE TEACHING

A veteran educator blends a debut memoir and teaching advice.

Like many new teachers, Ming took it personally when students misbehaved or refused to put their best efforts into her class. After all, she believed that “irritating” student behaviors negatively impacted “MY classroom, MY ability to teach Geometry, and MY peace as an educator.” But when one of her problematic students died by suicide, she realized only too late the missed signs of personality changes and hallmarks of lethal preparation. The student’s death “haunted” the author for years, and she even took a job in the private sector for a time. Upon returning to the classroom years later, Ming rededicated her life to service to students in Maryland and Washington, D.C., becoming the 2021-2022 Project Lead the Way Outstanding Teacher of the Year. Combining her personal failures and successes in the classroom with advice gleaned from decades of experience, the author offers teachers encouragement and advice on the value of being patient, humble, and perceptive in the classroom. Ming, who works in predominantly urban and Black parochial schools, is also outspoken about her faith, noting that she was “inspired and called” into the classroom by Jesus to help “students exercise their God-given gifts and mind to His glory.” Thus, for example, she not only emphasizes the value of aesthetics and the physical maintenance of classrooms (“Students,” she convincingly argues, “treat their spaces differently based on perceived value and importance”), but she also urges teachers to adorn their rooms with Christian-themed inspirational messages, posters, and Scriptures. Many of her favorite posters and images are included in the work’s appendix material. As useful as this may be for private Christian educators, much of the book’s religiously inspired advice to teachers would not be permitted in public school settings. This drawback notwithstanding, Ming is an evocative writer whose work touches on important themes in education today, from racism and mental health to the encouragement of Generation Z students, whose learning styles and needs are drastically different than their predecessors’.

A powerful and inspirational work for teachers that’s limited only by its religious emphasis.