Moral Questions in the Classroom: How to Get Kids to Think Deeply about Real Life and their School Work [Hardcover]

Katherine G. Simon (Author), Nancy Faust Sizer (Author), Theodore R. Sizer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2001 | ISBN-10: 0300090323 | ISBN-13: 978-0300090321

What constitutes a just war? How does race matter in America? Are the interests of corporations the same as those of the public when it comes to the environment or public health? Middle and high school history, literature, and science classes abound with important moral, social, and political questions. But under pressure to cover required materials and out of fear of raising controversy, teachers often avoid classroom discussions of questions of profound importance to students and to society. This book investigates how schools can responsibly take an active role in moral education while honouring their academic mission. Using extensive observations in public, Catholic, and Jewish high schools, Katherine Simon analyses the ways in which teachers avoid or address moral questions raised by students and implicit in course materials. She examines how morally charged issues may be taught responsibly in a diverse democracy. And in an afterword that teachers and teacher-trainers 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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Motivated by a suspicion that schools fail to teach what "matters," Simon, director of research at the Coalition of Essential Schools in California, spent months observing literature, history and biology classes at a public, a Catholic and a Jewish high school. What "matters" to Simon is the integration of moral and existential inquiry into the classroom; she argues that not only are moral and existential questions at the heart of the major disciplines, they are also extremely compelling to students. But too much of what goes on in schools, she contends, is "the forming of uninformed opinions" and "decontextualized fact acquisition." Although she shows how even good teachers sometimes deflect or shut down important discussions, Simon places the blame squarely on the education system that works "against teachers being able to incorporate discussions of substantive issues into their classrooms." As in many recent books, the villain is the standardized test, and the stakes, for both students and teachers, attached to it. Simon writes fluently, integrating transcripts of classroom discussions smoothly into her narrative and engagingly conveying her idealist's passion for reform. To reconsider education's entire enterprise is a very tall order, however, and Simon acknowledges the enormous obstacles her project faces. Readers will agree that students shouldn't continue to feel disengaged in school because they're denied the chance to ask and answer essential questions, but they may be skeptical of Simon's starry-eyed recipe for change.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

This is a particularly timely book, given the moral and ethical discussions taking place in classrooms since the terrorist attacks on the U.S., starting with revenge versus justice. Using interviews with teachers and students in public, Catholic, and Jewish schools and her experience as a high-school teacher, Simon examines how teachers explore moral and existential issues in the course of teaching standard school curricula. Simon advocates that teachers encourage exploration of moral issues to develop students' moral as well as intellectual skills--and because research, most notably by Robert Coles, has shown that young people are interested in such issues. She briefly and broadly defines what might be moral or existential issues, cautions against usurping the work of church and family or distracting schools from teaching the basics, and offers practical strategies for structuring discussions. Parents and educators of middle- and high-school students will find this a helpful resource. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (October 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300090323
• ISBN-13: 978-0300090321
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #647,209 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Someone is finally asking the right questions, August 28, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Moral Questions in the Classroom: How to Get Kids to Think Deeply about Real Life and their School Work (Hardcover)

Thank you to Katherine Simon for suggesting ways that education can be meaningful both for students and teachers. This beautifully written and well argued book argues that teachers are systemically limited in their ability to ask meaningful questions, the ones that students most want to talk about and teachers most want to teach. "Moral" or "existential" questions are what liberal education should be about, Simon argues, and this university professor frankly agrees.

Finally, an academic and educator is forcing us to ask what price we are paying by making standardized tests the measure of learning, and she charts a path for bringing meaning back into education. This book is a MUST READ for anyone interested in children's education.
I plan on asking my university colleagues to read it, because although Simon focuses on K-12 education, her lessons are applicable to all levels of learning.

Kudos to Dr. Simon

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A "must read" for teachers, October 6, 2004

By 

Paul M. Englesberg "Critical educator" (Wash. State) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Moral Questions in the Classroom: How to Get Kids to Think Deeply About Real Life and Their Schoolwork (Paperback)

I read Katherine Simon's book "Moral Questions in the Classroom" this summer with much interest and excitement. It seemed like such a great resource that I decided to introduce parts to my college students in our teacher education program and make a quick change in my syllabus. She includes examples of the missed and avoided opportunities for moral conversations, transcripts and explanations of several in-depth discussions of moral and existential discussions, and very cogent and sharp yet sympathetic analysis. These all impressed me deeply, and I look forward to the reactions of my students. I really think that every teacher, especially those in middle and high schools, should read and discuss this book. It would make a great book for teacher discussion groups, for teacher education classes, and for graduate programs in education.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Thinking deeply about moral and existential questions..., May 19, 2004

By 

Stephen Armstrong (Hadley, Ma USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Moral Questions in the Classroom: How to Get Kids to Think Deeply About Real Life and Their Schoolwork (Paperback)

Six years after she completed her fieldwork in three high schools (one typically suburban, one Catholic, and one Jewish), Katherine Simon has written this book about discussing moral issues in the classroom.

Her emphasis is on the interaction between the kids and teachers around what she calls "moral and existential" questions--what is a good life, what does it mean to die, what matters? She loves how youngsters can "open up" their seriously held questions of meaning of their lives under proper classroom management and curriculum design.

She thinks that these questions are the heart of good education. Her intellectual foundations seem to be Ted and Nancy Sizer and the Coalition of Essential Schools forum at Brown University--and the urging to ask important questions of youngsters.

Simon believes that most modern schools disconnect kids from their important questions and focus wrongly on the "trivial" non-essential mechanical mass tests at the end of the year. To this extent, she shares the liberal bias that objectivity and accountability are chimerical. Simon also differentiates her approach from cognitive developmentalists (Kohlberg, Nodding, Gilligan), character educators (Wynne, Lickona, Ryan, Bennett), and the values clarification crowd (who get caught in moral relativism).

Instead, Simon is a "pure" educator: she believes that all good education, including moral education, has coherence, is honest, allows for critical reflection, raises questions about how humans should act, and explores questions into the unknown.

What I liked most from this book: Simon gives detailed transcripts and stories from the three schools that served as her fieldwork. These transcripts are about raising moral questions as part of the curriculum: e.g., in literature (War and Peace) or biology class. I also agree with her pet peeve--that of missed opportunities to discuss moral and existential issues with kids.

I found all of the book easy to understand, but I am saddened that this book really falls into the genre of idealistic "systemic reform" books--that is, those books by thoughtful writers who are fed up with the limits of American public schools, which educate few children well. I believe that it would take thousands of Katherine Simons to implement moral discussions in classrooms--but perhaps some individual teachers will read this book and take heart.