REVISED AND UPDATED GUIDE FOR PROSPECTIVE TEACHERS WITH INCREASED DETAIL ABOUT THE REALITIES OF TEACHING IN A CHANGING DEMOGRAPHIC SOCIETY, POST-PANDEMIC LIFE, SOCIETAL CHANGES BROUGHT ABOUT BY TECHNOLOGY, AND THE CURRENT POLITICAL MOMENT IN EDUCATION. Real challenges. Real choices. And very real consequences. That’s what today's classrooms are about. That's why Marleen Pugach's _Because Teaching Matters_, Third Edition depicts today's classrooms as they truly are, while highlighting the enormous impact teachers have on students' lives. The book is organized around five professional commitments— learning from multiple sources of knowledge, using the curriculum responsibly, practicing equity-minded teaching, meeting the needs of individual students in the context of the classroom and school community, and contributing actively to the profession. The third edition focuses on: * The current landscape and challenges of supporting multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-lingual and multi-ability classrooms across socio-economic levels, and the relationships among students, families, communities, and educators * The latest academic approaches for teaching students who have disabilities, leveraging modern classroom technology, the role of legislation and funding, and updates on the current context of teaching and teacher preparation * New post-pandemic societal and educational contexts * Classroom and school reflections on practice, written by current teachers and teacher leaders in real classrooms and real schools, showing authentic best practices in action. Ideal for Foundations of Education and Introduction to Teaching courses designed to provide preservice teachers with an overview of the profession, _Because Teaching Matters_, Third Edition tells the story of today's complex classrooms. It also drives home that, though the decision to teach is a serious one, it is one that can be extremely rewarding.