Purpose, Scope, and Method of Study: Hospital school teachers are a unique population of educators highly qualified and experienced in teaching students who are facing health crises. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to describe the lived experience of teaching seriously ill students in the hospital school setting. The study was guided by the following primary research question: What is the essence of teaching students facing health crises? Semi-structured interviews with seven full-time hospital school teachers yielded five themes. Findings and Conclusions: Three of the emergent themes were focused on the teachers' roles, and two themes dealt with the teachers' values. A primary role-based theme was the teachers' focus on relationships, and more specifically, relationships with the students, with the students' families, as advocates for health-challenged students, and with the students' multidisciplinary care team. A second theme was the necessity of flexible prioritization, primarily with scheduling, learning goals and objectives, and curricular streamlining. An additional role-based theme was as a normalizing factor for the students. The interviews revealed a fourth, more values-based theme of teaching in the present moment and for the "now" of the child's life, not trying to predict the child's future. The final theme was a description of teaching success defined not by the teachers' accomplishments or academic assessments, but instead by the individual success stories of their students. Cumulatively, these themes described the lived experience of teaching children facing health crises in hospital schools. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]