Community building for children and teachers: a review if three recent books.

BUILDING CLASSROOM COMMUNITIES: Strategies for Developing a Culture of Caring. David A. Levine. Bloomington, IN: National Educational Service, 2003. 126 pp. $9.95.

CARING FOR KIDS IN COMMUNITIES: Using Mentorship, Peer Support, & Student Leadership Programs in Schools. Julia Ellis, Jan Small-McGinley, & Lucy De Fabrizio. New York: Peter Lang. 2001. 284 pp. $29.95.

THE SCHOOL BUDDY SYSTEM: The Practice of Collaboration. Gail Bush. Chicago: ALA Editions, 2003. 144 pp. $33.00.

Due to the increased emphasis on student academic performance and teacher/school accountability in the United States, issues related to the socioemotional climate of classrooms and schools are the focus of a number of recent books. Two of the books discussed in this review are concerned with community building for students (Levine; Ellis et al.), and one addresses community building for teachers (Bush).

David Levine, a former teacher and U.S. Department of Education trainer, has presented many workshops on how teachers can build classroom communities, and his book is filled with practical suggestions for ways teachers can transform a group of students into such a community. He addresses such issues as nurturing resilience, establishing a culture of caring, developing empathy, and building teams within the classroom. He also presents an effective rationale for the importance of taking the time to teach social skills and build community, even in the face of increasing pressures on children to compete academically. The content includes strategies for building an emotionally safe classroom, encouraging honor and respect within a "culture of caring," and continuing to strengthen the classroom community, as well as a special section on a method for building empathy in students through a process called Event Empathy Action (EEA). The book includes many excellent activities to develop positive inter-dependence awareness and community within the classroom. This book would be a good addition to a teacher's library, because it provides practical ways to enhance belonging and meaning, even within present-day, stressful school environments.

The authors of the other book focusing on children, caring, and communities extend these ideas into a broader dimension that includes not only the classroom but also the entire school community. Julia Ellis, Jan Small-McGinley, and Lucy De Fabrizio draw on a wealth of their own experiences, which encompass early primary to university teaching and team assessment and consultation, to invite schools to use various types of mentorship, peer support, and student leadership to enhance their students' learning. After providing a rationale for the importance of using these approaches to build community, the book gives examples of a wide variety of effective mentorship and peer support/leadership programs. Research on these successful programs provides the reader with insight into the strengths an d problems encountered in the various models. The book also includes case studies and suggestions to guide education personnel in developing mentorship and peer leadership programs to strengthen their school communities. While not as reader-friendly as the Levine book, the detailed analysis of the various programs and the elaborate case studies would be very helpful to review before starting a mentorship or peer support program in a school.

Finally, Bush raises an important point in the third book. If educators are to create classroom and/or school communities, they also need to feel part of a community. This book addresses the issue of how teachers can effectively collaborate within a "school buddy" system that fosters their own emotional safety within the school community. It discusses the status of educational collaboration today and in the past, as well as the factors that contribute to the development of a "collaborative mind-set." The author, an educational psychologist and librarian, describes the reasons why collaboration is difficult to achieve and also explains its importance and value in improving school climates. She outlines a framework of educator collaboration and seine of the strategies needed to achieve it within a "school buddy" model. This book would be most useful for a school-wide educator group to read together, because it could foster some excellent discussions about both the constraints and the opportunities associated with a collaborative community in the school.

Taken together, these three books provide a wide assortment of suggestions on the theme of educational collaboration and community building, confirming the importance of interdependence in the educational process and reminding the reader that the present-day focus on academic achievement is only one part of the school climate. Doris Bergen, Miami University, Oxford, OH