Learning to Trust: Transforming Difficult Elementary Classrooms Through Developmental Discipline

Faced with increasing numbers of children who are difficult to manage and the pervasive presence of high stakes testing, many teachers feel frustrated and compelled to reduce their attention to building relationships with and among their students and their focus on social and ethical development. In Learning to Trust, an educational psychologist and a classroom teacher collaborate to demonstrate through an in-depth case study of an inner-city classroom the power and importance of caring, trusting relationships for fostering children's academic growth as well as their social and ethical development.
Marilyn Watson explains and describes the ups and downs of Laura Ecken's classroom through the lens of attachment theory, while Laura describes in vivid detail the ongoing life of her classroom, revealing throughout her challenges, thoughts, fears, failures and successes. Together they explore a fundamentally new approach to classroom management and present many practical strategies for helping all children develop the social and emotional skills needed to live harmonious and productive lives, the self confidence and curiosity to invest wholeheartedly in learning, and the empathy and moral understanding to be caring and responsible young people.

Marilyn Sheehan Watson has worked for more than two decades with teachers, teacher educators, and education researchers to effectively promote children's social, moral, and intellectual development. As program director of the Developmental Studies Center's award-winning school change effort, the Child Development Project, and as director of the center's national Teacher Education Project, she has been instrumental in defining education that has children's basic developmental needs at its heart.

Laura Ecken has shared sixteen thoughtful years with the elementary school children of Louisville, Kentucky. She is one of the teachers we never forget.