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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 New York, state, United States
New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of
: Peter Lang. 2001. 284 pp. $29.95.

THE SCHOOL BUDDY SYSTEM buddy system
n.
An arrangement in which persons are paired, as for mutual safety or assistance.

Noun 1. 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 United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. , 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 resilience (r·zilˑ·yens),
n
, establishing a culture of caring, developing empathy empathy

Ability to imagine oneself in another's place and understand the other's feelings, desires, ideas, and actions. The empathic actor or singer is one who genuinely feels the part he or she is performing.
, 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 EEA European Economic Area
EEA European Environment Agency
EEA Employment Equity Act (Canada)
EEA Een En Ander (Dutch)
EEA Erick van Egeraat Associated Architects
EEA Energy and Environmental Analysis
). 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 psy·chol·o·gist
n.
A person trained and educated to perform psychological research, testing, and therapy.


psychologist 
 and librarian (1) A person who works in the data library and keeps track of the tapes and disks that are stored and logged out for use. Also known as a "file librarian" or "media librarian." See data library.

(2) See CA-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 Seine (sān, Fr. sĕn), Lat. Sequana, river, c.480 mi (770 km) long, rising in the Langres Plateau and flowing generally NW through N France.  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 CONSTRAINTS - A language for solving constraints using value inference.

["CONSTRAINTS: A Language for Expressing Almost-Hierarchical Descriptions", G.J. Sussman et al, Artif Intell 14(1):1-39 (Aug 1980)].
 and the opportunities associated with a collaborative community in the school.

Taken together, these three books provide a wide assortment assortment /as·sort·ment/ (ah-sort´ment) the random distribution of nonhomologous chromosomes to daughter cells in metaphase of the first meiotic division.

as·sort·ment
n.
 of suggestions on the theme of educational collaboration and community building, confirming the importance of interdependence in·ter·de·pen·dent  
adj.
Mutually dependent: "Today, the mission of one institution can be accomplished only by recognizing that it lives in an interdependent world with conflicts and overlapping interests" 
 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 Miami University, main campus at Oxford, Ohio; coeducational; state supported; chartered 1809, opened 1824. The library has extensive collections in literature and American history, including the William Holmes McGuffey Library and Museum and the Edgar W. , Oxford, OH
COPYRIGHT 2004 Association for Childhood Education International
No portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.
Copyright 2004, Gale Group. All rights reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.

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Title Annotation:Building Classroom Communities: Strategies for Developing a Culture of Caring; Caring for Kids in Communities: Using Mentorship, Peer Support, & Student Leadership Programs in Schools; The School Buddy System: The Practice of Collaboration
Author:Bergen, Doris
Publication:Childhood Education
Article Type:Book Review
Date:Mar 22, 2004
Words:730
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