Roxanna Elden, an English teacher at Hialeah High School, delivered this presentation on “The Myth of the Super Teacher” at the plenary session of the Education Writers Association’s 65th National Seminar, “Tomorrow’s Teacher: Paths to Prestige and Effectiveness.” Elden discusses the difficulties new teachers face reconciling the ideal image of successful “super teachers” with the harsh realities of real life teaching.

Elden is the author of the Education Next article “Data-Driven and Off Course” (Winter 2011).  Her book, See Me After Class, was blurbed by Dave Barry, who wrote, ““You know how you’ve always thought that if you were a teacher, you’d go insane? Well, this very funny book proves that you would. But in a good way.”