An Ethic of Excellence: Building a Culture of Craftsmanship with Students

Drawing from his own remarkable experience as a veteran classroom teacher (still in the classroom), Ron Berger gives us a vision of educational reform that transcends standards, curriculum, and instructional strategies. He argues for a paradigm shift—a schoolwide embrace of an "ethic of excellence." A master carpenter as well as a gifted teacher, Berger is guided by a craftsman’s passion for quality, describing what’s possible when teachers, students, and parents commit to nothing less than the best. But Berger’s not just idealistic, he’s realistic—he tells exactly how this can be done, from the blackboard to the blacktop to the school boardroom.

Ron Berger has been a public school teacher in western Massachusetts for 25 years. He works with the Expeditionary Learning Outward Bound school network, Harvard Project Zero, and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.