Habits of Goodness: Case Studies in the Social Curriculum

Expanding on her ideas in Teaching Children to Care, Charney invites six elementary school teachers to study problems from their classrooms concerning the social curriculum. She asks them to share their questions, their struggles and their triumphs over the course of a school year.

The teachers come from rural schools and inner city schools, from the early primary grades and the upper level grades. All are committed to creating caring communities by teaching "habits of goodness," a goodness, writes Charney, which is "founded on mutual respect, on assertions of kindness and responsibility for the real work that needs to be done."

Charney provides insightful commentary on each case study and highlights common themes and practices. Sensible and inspiring, Habits of Goodness presents practical approaches for bringing caring into the classroom, offers effective strategies for integrating ethical practice into daily classroom life and provides a working model for collegial problem-solving. 196 pages, paper.