Promising Practices in Teaching Social Responsibility

Sheldon Berman is President of Educators for Social Responsibility and is one of the group's founders. Phyllis LaFarge is a contributing editor to Parents Magazine and is a freelance writer in the area of child development.

"There is a strong message here for virtually any educator or person concerned about the survival of our world as a decent place for all its inhabitants. These shining examples can move teachers who feel the need to teach differently to a vision of teaching that is bound up with the hope of a just, caring, and participative society." — Edward Mikel, National-Louis University"For the past decade a movement has been going on in schools across the country that has escaped the notice of the mainstream press, the television talk shows, and officials in state and federal departments of education. It is a movement of teachers, administrators, parents, and students who are demanding something more of their schools than just higher test scores. Rather, what they want are schools that produce young people who can think well, are able to understand the world around them, have a sense of the common good, and the courage to make a difference."Promising Practices in Teaching Social Responsibility is about the daily work of classroom teachers trying to make their rooms places where social responsibility is nurtured and developed. It is a tour on which we are invited into a wide variety of classrooms where the promise of democratic life is sustained by the way in which children and adults are treated."As I read this book, I often found myself thinking about my own children, ages 5 and 9, in these classrooms and what a joy it would be for them—and for me. It's an opportunity every child (and parent) should have and I hope this book helps to create such classrooms and schools in communities across the country."— George H. Wood, Ohio University, author of Schools That Work: America's Most Innovative Public Education Programs

• PrefacePhyllis La Farge IntroductionSheldon Berman 1. Controversial Issues and Young Children: Kindergartners Try to Understand ChernobylJanice Balsam Danielson 2. Bringing Global Awareness into Elementary School ClassroomsSheila Reindl 3. Cooperative Learning: Making the TransitionSarah Pirtle 4. "You Need Lots of Choices": Conflict Resolution in the Elementary GradesSara Goodman and William J. Kreidler 5. Democratic Practices at the Elementary School Level: Three PortraitsClarissa Sawyer 6. Literature in the Classroom: Pathways to Social ResponsibilityBarbara Beckwith 7. Educating for Multicultural Perspectives: A Doorway to the Rest of HumanityMonica Andrews 8. You and I Are the Same: The Multicultural ClassroomNina A. Mullen and Laurie Olsen 9. Words, Not Weapons; Dialogue, Not Debate: Managing Conflict at the Middle- and Secondary-School LevelsAnne Yeomans 10. Promising Practices in the Social StudiesDennis Shirley 11. Science and Society: Teaching Social Responsibility in the Nuclear AgeBeth Wilson Fultz 12. Math and Social ResponsibilitySheldon Berman 13. The Arts: Imagining a Better WorldDavid M. Stuart 14. Educating for Democracy and Community: Toward the Transformation of Power in Our SchoolsSeth Kreisberg 15. Teaching for Global Responsibility through Student Participation in the CommunityDale A. Bryan Contributors Topic Index Index of Educational Researchers and Theorists Index of Teachers, Administrators, Students, and Schools Referred to in Text