Teaching Goodness: Engaging the Moral and Academic Promise of Young Children

Engaging Young Children's Academic and Moral Aspirations in School is an exploration of classroom practices that demonstrates how a teacher captures the moral and academic aspirations of young children. While there are books on moral education and on how to engage children in meaningful learning (e.g., the thematic or project approach), this book is unique because it blends the two in a readable and engaging fashion. The pedagogy assumes that young children naturally want to improve and have the capacity to improve-both academically and morally-but that these desires and capacities emerge only when the teacher selects unusually grand goals and themes that tap and hold the imagination and desires of children. This book takes readers into the classroom where they will see firsthand how the teacher is both directive-asking leading questions, offering suggestions and alternatives, and creating dissonance-and is non-directive-inviting children to pose their own questions and answers and to try out their own solutions. For anyone interested in the education of young children including teachers and parents.