For the past year, the Southern Education Desk has been digging into the challenges facing education in the south. One core question that has surfaced over and over again is: What is good teaching? What are the elements and how is it accomplished? The answer is complicated. There are no easy answers. Real understanding takes time, context and perspective. This week, Southern Education Desk journalists from five states begin a series of reports that will seek to provide some answers. We start with John Hughes in Monroe, Louisiana.

You can hear/read the entire Good Teaching Series on the Southern Education Desk website.