Place Value: An Educators' Guide to Good Literature on Rural Lifeways, Environments, and Purposes of Education

Are today's schools teaching rural children how to live well in their own communities? Or do they give students the impression that the good life can be lived only somewhere else, preferably someplace more urban?

As former rural teachers and administrators, Haas and Nachtigal understand the important bond educators and students have with their communities. In five bibliographical essays, they review nonfictional and fictional literature that emphasizes how rural areas are forged by their particular ecology, politics, economy, values, and spirituality. The key to living well is understanding how these forces affect our daily lives. Place Value provides classroom examples to show how educators can emphasize the connection rural people have with each other and the landscape they share.

Dr. Toni Haas and Dr. Paul Nachtigal are the former codirectors of the Annenberg Rural Challenge.