"In Gianna Cassetta's previous books, she discussed the importance of teaching socioemotional skills to children. In this book, Gianna and co-author Margaret Wilson tackles how to cultivate our own socioemotional skills so that we can become better teachers and happier people. She explains the current reality in many classrooms as a gap in our socioemotional competence: "if we aren't self-aware, we can't self-manage very well--we allow fear to block the possibility of connection or compassion, and often find ourselves in us vs. them situations. Whoever we end up against, we put great effort into minimizing their problems and perspectives, and eventually they become invisible to us. They just aren't real enough to deal with." This book will offer teachers reflective activities and models that help them transcend the momentum of fear and focus on connecting to themselves, their colleagues, children's families, and the children in their classroom"--