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Moral Questions in the Classroom:
How to Get Kids to Think Deeply about Real Life and their School Work
Press Release from
Yale University Press
New Haven-How can schools take an active role in moral education without digressing from their academic mission? That is the timely and difficult question addressed by Katherine G. Simon in MORAL QUESTIONS IN THE CLASSROOM: How to Get Kids to Think Deeply About Real Life and Their Schoolwork (Yale University Press; pub date November 15, 2001;
$26.95), with a foreword by Theodore R. Sizer and Nancy Faust Sizer. For teachers of middle and high school students struggling to reorient them-selves in an ever more dangerous and confusing world, the question has never seemed more urgent.
Simon analyzes how teachers address or avoid moral issues that arise in middle and high school classrooms, then explains how morally charged issues may be taught responsibly in a diverse democracy. She offers many practical tips to help teachers explore deeply important questions with their students. What constitutes a just war? How does race matter in America, and how does race matter in other parts of the world? Are the interests of government the same as those of the public when it comes to the environment or public safety? History, literature, and science classes abound with important moral, social, and political questions. But under pressure to cover material and fearful of raising controversy, teachers often avoid discussing these profoundly important questions. As a high school teacher herself, Simon admits that she too often missed such opportunities. Using extensive observations and transcripts of discussions in public, Catholic, and Jewish high schools, Simon analyzes how teachers avoid or address moral questions raised by students and implicit in course materials.
MORAL QUESTIONS IN THE CLASSROOM
addresses the question most often raised in the context of moral education: "If public schools teach values, whose values will they teach?" The book reviews current approaches to moral education and examines how morally charged issues can be taught responsibly in our diverse democracy. And in an afterword that teachers and teacher educators will find particularly useful, Simon provides practical tools and strategies for structuring discussion and designing units to help teachers explore moral issues more deeply with their middle and high school students.
"This book . . . not only indicates the direction in which we should be heading, but tells us how to get there. Kathy Simon is the wise colleague who needs to be on every curriculum committee, a frequent visitor in every classroom, a 'critical friend' to every principal. Thanks to this book, she will be."
- Theodore R. Sizer and Nancy Faust Sizer
"Simon combines research with excellent practical examples to stimulate anyone who wants students turned on by their academic subjects yet motivated by the ethical principles and compassion needed to apply that knowledge wisely."
- Esther F. Schaeffer, Executive Director & CEO, Character Education Partnership
"Simon's book is welcome both for its directness and its care in trying to understand what can be done to introduce moral and existential deliberation into the public school instructional process."
- David Labaree, Michigan State University
"In this age of acute political correctness, complex issues of morality tend to be leached out of the public high-school curricula. Based on her own extensive observation of classrooms, Katherine Simon makes a compelling and passionate case for the rescue and return of these issues to the classroom. With standards and tests further constricting what is taught in schools, this is a book for every educator committed to helping students expand their intellect, while grappling with the big questions of life and living."
- Patricia A. Wasley, Dean and Professor, University of Washington
About the Author . . .
Katherine G. Simon is Director of Research at the Coalition of Essential Schools in Oakland, California, where she leads a wide variety of workshops for teachers, including a five-day summer institute called "Essential Moral Questions." She has a Ph.D. from the Stanford University School of Education.
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Page last updated: June 04, 2002
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