Stumbling on to the Stories from School blog is a bit like finding a best-kept-secret coffee shop. Half of you can’t wait to share it with your friends and the other half greedily wants to keep it just for yourself to enjoy. Well, my former half is about to win.

Stories from School was created by the Center for Strengthening the Teaching Profession (or CSTP) as a means for Nationally Board Certified Teachers to reflect on the effects policy has on their classroom practice—and reflect they certainly do. These teachers aren’t just engaging narrative writers, they essentially collapse the divide (let’s face it, grand canyon) between policymakers and educators.

Witness their coverage of ELL instruction, performance pay, and the alternative routes to certification debate.

My favorite set of posts on the blog, however, are the type I usually hate: memes. Over the last few weeks, Stories’ teachers have each listed “5 things policymakers ought to know about my classroom”—and the lists are terrific. Here’s a taste:

Tom: “3. Many of my students eat the best meal of their day during lunch in the cafeteria. And they get it for free. I worry about them over the summer.

4. Nearly half of my students speak a language other than English at home. Twenty years ago, when I first started teaching in my school, there were less than ten bilingual students in the whole school.”

Richelle: “3. All day kindergarten (and preschool) matter! Having taught elementary students for 16 years, I can often tell which students have had such high quality early learning experiences. It is always frustrating to see, at the age of five, that some kids are already so far behind their peers.”

Shelley: “3. The emotional needs of children in my classroom are often overlooked or neglected because there are not enough resources available to help them. In order to help students learn, we must first take care of their emotional needs. Experts recommend one counselor for every 250 students across all grade levels, but the current ratio at my middle school is 454:1. Our community counseling services for children are also overloaded.”

Curious? Check out Stories from School for yourself.