"What motivates children to do well in school-and in life?" asks Sheila Zaretsky in this compelling, highly readable view of the most troubling aspect of modern education. "Why is it that some are goal oriented and succeed while others hang back, turn away, or totally shut down? How can the unmotivated ones be reached? Finding answers to these questions became the focus of my twenty-five-year career in teaching, and it remains the focus of my second career as a psychotherapist. This book tells what I have learned about the powerful inner forces that can lead to growth and success or to dysfunction and despair. It is also about how to help children reverse their patterns of desolation and failure." In this warm and compassionate story, she shares the insights she gained by applying therapeutic understanding to her inner-city classroom. Like Erin Gruell's "The Freedom Writer's Diary," it begins with wanting to connect with her often difficult students in a constructive way. In an innovative psychotherapeutic program, she found solutions that built rather than destroyed her students' egos. The balance of her twenty-five-year teaching career was a stress-free, creative, and fascinating adventure.