Community Models

Group Model Introduction

Building Character Through Administration

1^st Consideration: Moral Implications of Teacher-Student Discourse, during learning activities.

            Mastery:

Moral Question

·         Is it moral to engage children in the mastery of a collection of facts and content, rather than in mastering forms and/or strategies of inquiry?

            Voice:

Moral Questions

·         Is it moral to limit children’s opportunities from bringing their own ways of knowing and communicating knowledge? Is it moral to limit unique responses which reflect the student’s ways of learning and knowing?

            Authority:

Moral Questions

·         Is it moral to engage children in learning activities where the teacher assumes all authority over knowledge? Is it moral that children’s claim to knowledge be seen as challenges to that teacher’s authority?

            Positionality:

Moral Question

·         Is it moral that knowledge is understood to be transmitted exclusively from teacher to student, passing from one individual to another, rather than envisioned as co-constructed by all learners engaged in shared inquiry?

2^nd Consideration: Child Development Project (CDP). Intentionality behind discourse and curriculum.

            Component 1. Literature-based reading and language arts

            Component 2. Collaborative classroom learning

            Component 3. Developmental Discipline

-          Much of the research comes together here!

            Component 4. Parent involvement

            Component 5. School wide activities

3^rd Consideration: Age/Grade appropriate developmental levels, with classroom methods.

4^th - Community Model: General Overview

·         Create a conventional moral system they (students) can believe in.

·         Learning respect for rules is one of two moral building blocks

-          Rules need not be arbitrary, handed down from administration, and simply followed.

-          Rules need to be respected, as agreements that a group made among themselves.

·         Non-indoctrinate approach. Getting children to accept a fixed body of rules in such a way that they are incapable of adopting critical attitudes towards them. Encourage students to form their own perceptions.

·         The better reasons children have to support why certain actions are right or wrong, the more they do right. Peers are the best reasons!

·         Peer groups have a distinct social reality and moral force. The unit of effectiveness in schools, is the group

·         The whole community shares the responsibility of each individual. Individuals make their decisions about how to act by considering how their actions will affect the group.

The conflict between self-will and social-will is expressed when you commit to a cause shared by other