Habits of Goodness

This research examines the book Habits of Goodness: Case Studies in the Social Curriculum by Ruth Sidney Charney. The research will set forth a summary of the book's structure and content and then discuss how the principles of classroom management and student development described in the book could be applied in the real-world elementary-education environment.

The overall plan of Habits of Goodness can be characterized as an attempt to show teachers, especially at the elementary-school level, methods that they can use to create a meaningful structure of communication in the classroom that is based mainly on the acquisition of social, rather than academic skills. That does not mean that academic content is to have secondary importance but rather that in order for such content to reach meaning in the classroom, its environment needs to be made conducive to the learning process. That may seem like a roundabout way of saying that classrooms need discipline and that teachers should not relinquish their authority and expertise to disruptive students; however, what Habits of Goodness aims at is not so simplistic. Rather, its focus on specific techniques for getting rid of bad classroom behavior by eliciting what could be called "buy-in" and internalization of socially acceptable speech and demeanor on the part of the kids.

Beginning from a theory of the teacher's role in the classroom as a social problem solver quite as much as an academic instructor, Charney develops the view tha

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o acknowledgment of the other, not just in terms of absorption of new knowledge but in terms of social interaction, sharing. The teacher aims for civilized student responsiveness to unfolding classroom experience, in a civil rather than punitive manner, via specific classroom (social) "rules," which are continually invoked and specifically attached to consequences (e.g., "time outs" for interrupting or making fun of someone in class) when the rules are broken (Jacques, 1997; McNeill-Vann, 1997). Toward the end of elementary school, social internalization can be refined to impart to children that they can engage in creative learning strategies. Kaplan's (1997) management of two students' "boredom" with a particular social studies project, for example, involved actively engaging more students in a class meeting that amounted to brainstorming sessions and that elicited more interest in the topic from all concerned. What is perhaps most interesting about Charney's social emphasis in the classroom is that it appears to have worked in demographically diverse schools--urban and rural, middle-class the poverty class. The overall message of Habits of Goodness is that teachers have a responsibility and opportunity to clarify what they exp

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