In terms of teacher quality, Steele believes the best teachers have reached a stage she terms inspired, and that teachers move progressively through the stages of unaware, aware, and capable until the most reflective teachers finally reach the inspired level. Inspired teachers have a wide repertoire of teaching and class management techniques and are expert at "reading" both the situations around them and the individual characteristics and learning needs of each student. Thus they can easily draw one appropriate teaching response from many to provide individualized instruction. At the heart of inspired teaching is interpretation of the many subtle messages students send teachers about whether instruction is getting through. Steele unpacks four skills that inspired teachers excel at (1) interpreting events in progress; (2) being sensitive to context; (3) testing hypotheses; and (4) improvising. (Contains 1 endnote.)