Teaching to the Soul

Because the soul cannot be weighed or measured doesn’t mean that it cannot be touched. In order to quantify children’s progress, we have learned to devalue anything that cannot be quantified. The logic of our current educational culture dismisses the soul, and with it the personal experience and the inner life of children.


Poetry opens a window into the inner life of each child. Teaching to the Soul uses poems written by children in Mr. Bachhuber’s classroom to kick-start an investigation into the real lives of the children our educational system is supposed to serve. Chapters such as “The Writer,” “The Tough Kid,” and “The Soldier” clarify the failings of standardized tests, the importance of character, and demeaning reality of poverty.


Twelve children (five African-American, four White, one Hispanic, one Native American, and one Hmong) reveal themselves as thoughtful, caring human beings whose ability, not just to learn, but also to create, takes on a life of its own as they receive support for who they are.


Based on Mr. Bachhuber’s twenty-five years experience as a Montessori classroom teacher in the St. Paul Public schools, Teaching to the Soul delivers a well- articulated reminder that carries a punch—schools exist to serve children, not the other way around.


Daniel Bachhuber, a retired Montessori elementary teacher, writes fiction, nonfiction and poetry. He has published over sixty single poems, and numerous articles about education, as well as a teaching timeline for the study of children’s literature. In 1990, he won the Billee Murray Denny prize for a long poem, placing first among more than 2,500 entries. The poem, “Mozart’s G Minor Symphony,” describes the miracle of Mozart’s genius in the context of his dysfunctional family. Placing first in the Minnesota Voices Project in 1999, he used "Mozart's G Minor Symphony" as the centerpiece