Lita Remsen has been teaching young children for 25-plus years. While volunteering in a rural child-care program, she discovered a “passion for good early childhood education and the difference it can make in the lives of young children, their families and their future.” Lita taught in a Head Start program located in a senior center and now teaches kindergarten in a public school. She loves “creating an educational setting where kids get dynamically engaged” and becoming the facilitator of the experience with questions and comments. Outside of school, Lita is passionate about healthy movement and aging gracefully.

Susan Durning Stroming has been teaching in a public elementary school in Kent, Washington, for nine years. This year she is teaching fifth-graders from immigrant families, families driven out of Seattle by gentrification and families that have been around since the area was farm and forest land. “Every day matters,” Susan says. “I am never bored.” The worst part is “standardized testing, data collection, meetings, meetings and more meetings and the idea that education can be run like a business.” One big difference between us and today’s kids is technology. Otherwise, “Kids are kids. Fun, goofy, smart, passionate…kids!”

After four years in the Army and 20 years in marketing consumer packaged goods, Brian Goeselt started teaching U.S. history and economics at Newton (Massachusetts) North High School in 2004. “The job has many slow and enduring satisfactions,” the greatest is being part of developing and creating community. “Teaching is an incredibly creative profession”; the worst part is “grading papers. Period. Never gets better.” Devices are a constant source of distraction. Brian notes that we are still figuring out how to take advantage of being constantly connected to all of the world’s knowledge without giving up too much of the skill of listening carefully to the person you are with.

For eight years Robert Jessen has taught at the Monte del Sol charter school in Santa Fe, New Mexico; for the last three as head administrator, known as chief learner. The 7-to-12 grade school starts each year with a camping trip. By the time Robert teaches U.S. government to seniors, he knows the students well. The amount of energy teachers expend each day is astounding. Teachers are invested in every kid who walks through the door and try to solve the puzzle of how to motivate each student. “The hard part is how much of it you have to do every day.”

Laura Morrell Hicks earned her B.S.N. and was a nurse for 15 years. Eighteen years ago she started teaching high school. She taught math at a boys’ school and a girls’ boarding school and now teaches math and science at coed East Catholic High School. Laura shares stories from her biology foreign study program and helps students explore career choices. Her math students use graphing calculators and Laura incorporates iPads in her science classes, but she doesn’t let technology drive the curriculum. Laura has coached track and alpine skiing and still loves to ski, hike, kayak and play tennis.

—Robin Shaffert, 5044 Macomb St., NW, Washington, DC 20016; robinshaffert@yahoo.com; David Eichman, 9004 Wonderland Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90046; dme4law@sbcglobal.net