The teachers of young children who speak to us so earnestly in the stories in Starting Small work in different communities but share a common that children can learn to care about every other person's feelings, beliefs and welfare. The notion may seem commonplace, something surely found in most classrooms. Yet, given the number of sad faces, hurt feelings and lonely outsiders in our schools, the empathy factor may be more talked about than systematically pursued.
A fairly informative and thought provoking book. I particularly enjoyed the way it was structured, with a good balance of case studies, critical essays, and practical applications. I found a few of the studies were not as thorough as they perhaps could have been, and there were some practices which the teachers employed which I definitely disagree with and would not employ in my own classroom. However, I do not think that diminishes the overall effectiveness of the book. I will definitely keep it on hand, particularly for the "applications" sections. It also includes an extensive and well researched bibliography.
Starting Small: Teaching Tolerance in Preschool and the Early Grades gives teacher insight into how to help students learn tolerance for each other, our society and communities. The idea is to teach our youngest students ideas and expectations about equity, cooperation and citizenship in our global society for a lifetime.