D-E Lower School (LS) faculty were excited last week to meet, collaborate with and learn directly from Ruth Charney, a founding member of  Responsive Classroom and author, Teaching Children to Care and Habits of Goodness.  Charney led the first of two on-campus visits with D-E teachers and administrators, including a special 3-hour workshop designed specifically for LS faculty members.

Retired after a 30-year teaching career that took her from Harlem to rural western Massachusetts, Ms. Charney now devotes her time to writing, consulting with schools and teaching educators. She was the co-founder of the Northeast Foundation for Children and a former co-director and teacher at the Foundation’s laboratory school.

Peter Davies, LS Principal, noted, "[It was invaluable to hear Ms. Charney's insights] on effective teaching...  It is Ruth’s fervent belief in the goodness of children and the efficacy of teachers that guides approach to education. [S]he asserts that children do not come to school knowing how to do all these things. They must be consciously taught, step-by-step. For example, Ruth emphasizes reinforcing expected behaviors by commenting on what children do right, reminding children of expected behaviors before things go wrong, and redirecting children when they have gone off track, "The Three R's" for teaching self-control."

In addition to providing core teaching tenets, the Responsive Classroom also provides guiding principles underlying its approach and six practical teaching strategies, including:

1. Social curriculum is as important as an academic curriculum.

2. How children learn is as important as what they learn: process and content go hand in hand.

3. The greatest cognitive growth occurs through social interaction.

4. There is a set of social skills children need in order to be successful academically and socially: cooperation, assertion, responsibility, empathy, and self-control.

5. Knowing the children we teach individually, culturally, and developmentally is as important as knowing the content we teach.

6. Knowing the families of the children we teach and inviting their participation is essential to children's education.

7. How the adults at school work together is as important as individual competence: lasting change begins with the adult community.

For more on Charney's Lower School visit and the Responsive Classroom, click here.