For most of my life, I've been a teacher of some sort. In middle and high school, I was an arithmetic and algebra tutor for underprivileged kids; in college, I volunteered in the math and writing centers; now, I'm teach ethics and logic classes in the philosophy department at UW-Madison. Teaching is the most important part of my life, and my role as an educator is what most defines my identity. I have no general guiding principle about teaching, other than that it isn't really useful to think in terms of such principles. Rather, I think that it's best to approach each student as having a distinct learning style and set of educational objectives, and thus, as representing a distinct set of challenges and rewards.