Richard Locke began his first full-time job teaching seventh grade social studies at Francis W. Parker School in Chicago a quarter of a century before writing this article. Here he writes that as a young inexperienced teacher just out of college he was filled with enthusiasm and convinced that education could play a progressive role in society. Hired to teach African and Latin American history to seventh grade students, he tackled this challenge by revamping the curriculum so that students would learn not only about the cultures, histories, and geographies of these continents but also about themselves. During this time Locke remembers becoming aware that teaching is as much an emotional experience as it is an academic experience. He found this exchange of feelings, hopes and fears was time consuming, and at times heart-wrenching, but the lessons he learned during his first year in the classroom continue to shape the way he teaches today. Now a Chaired Full Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Locke teaches graduate students courses in international business, political economy, and entrepreneurship in developing countries. Here Locke presents a series of anecdotal accounts, excerpts from a diary he kept during his two years at Parker, which document in many ways his personal journey to discovering that teaching is an emotional as well as an academic experience. Locke comments that these diary entries show the importance of love and care in the lives of students and in teachers' interactions with them.