This book is an attempt to define the knowledge that beginning teachers should possess and addresses the difference between the "state of the art" and the "state of practice." It begins with three chapters that deal explicitly with general knowledge about teaching. Pedagogy is treated in chapters 4 through 8. These chapters deal with foundational information about learning principles and classroom climate. The text then moves to a discussion of the learner in context: how personal, social, and political factors and contexts affect the educative process; how they influence learning environments; and what the teacher can do to make those environments productive. Subsequent chapters deal with subject-specific pedagogy as well as the teaching of the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic. The book also comments on the teacher as a professional, legal rights and responsibilities, and the ethical dimensions of teaching. The volume ends with synthesis of insights on themes which emerge from these statements on the teacher as a professional and the implications regarding the impact teachers have in schools. (JD)