Few subjects get as much attention as education. Yet in many ways it’s like the weather.  We talk a lot about it, but sometimes it seems we can do very little.  Perhaps the most important thing we can do is focus on teachers. For they are at the ramparts of the battle. They are not just a piece of the puzzle, arguably they are the largest piece.  Yet how many of us, even the most active parents, really understand what it’s like in the classroom, day after day. What it really means to be a teacher.  Few are more distinguished or more successful than Rafe Esquith. He has taught at Hobart Elementary School in Los Angeles for twenty-four years. He is the only teacher to have been awarded the president's National Medal of the Arts and his new book is  Real Talk for Real Teachers: Advice for Teachers from Rookies to Veterans: "No Retreat, No Surrender!"My conversation with Rafe Esquith: