Given the prevalence of religion talk in today's world, another form of fluency is needed. Civic multilingualism is the ability to converse across different religious and ethical perspectives in search of understanding, compromise, and common ground. According to the author, this may represent the greatest social challenge of the 21st century.…

Over the years there have been different terms for the idea of educating for character. Some of these are moral education, moral reasoning, values clarification, and ethics. But the basic idea of using schools to produce people of good character has been around for many generations. This volume explores the importance of including character…

Very few elementary public school teachers in the United States expose their students to religion and spirituality in an in-depth way. Even when they have the necessary knowledge base, they shy away from so dangerous an enterprise. They might fear provoking a challenge from parents who are irreligious and are shocked to find religion being…

Three approaches (other than behavioral) for the management of behavior problems in special education are described. Values clarification (attributed to S. G. Simon) is described as a preventative approach emphasizing the student's role in managing him- or herself. Proponents of this approach view many behavior problems as arising from the absence…

The Effective Classroom Management and Discipline Strategies Graduate Program for Educators is organized around a series of core modules designed for use in inservice teacher education. The basic skills learned in these series of modules are communication (feedback, nonverbal, listening, self disclosure, problem solving, and conflict resolution),…

The focus of this paper is the benefits and successes accruing from using cooperative learning in the classroom. The background of small group instruction as an effective learning strategy is discussed. Descriptions are given of several cooperative learning techniques--Student Teams-Achievement Divisions, Teams-Games-Tournaments, Jigsaw, and…

Suggestions put forth in this paper on coping with violence in the classroom are based on the ethical teaching found in the Sermon on the Mount, personal experiences, and from various teachers, philosophers, and advocates of nonviolent behavior. Chapter headings for the major sections include: (1) Our culture reflects what it values--violence is a…

Decisions about what a teacher finds to be acceptable classroom behavior vs. unacceptable classroom behavior are value decisions. Unless a teacher has identified and delineated personal beliefs, attitudes, and feelings about discipline, and shaped them into a system of responses which are consistent with his or her personal teaching style, a…

The observations of a teacher educator who spent a semester teaching in a mainstreamed elementary classroom are recorded in this monograph. Case studies of students form the framework for the consideration of the broader implications and problems involved in mainstreaming. Illustrative classroom practices are offered to clarify such concepts as…