...reviewing research caring and attachment, this article discusses how to structure a caring classroom and suggests that parents and teachers consider picture books as a means of helping young children learn to care for themselves, animals, and others. The article concludes with a discussion of criteria for assessing picture books and suggests some appropriate titles based on these criteria.

Introduction

William is nervous about his first day of school. He is 5 years old and has entered kindergarten--a place he and his mother have visited several times. He is apprehensive, but excited. His teacher, Miss Stephanie, has worked with William and his mother to make sure that he is as comfortable as he can be in the school environment and with the other 5- and 6-year-olds in his class. When his mother leaves, he stands quietly surveying the classroom. Soon Miss Stephanie involves everyone in reading a story out loud, making William her page-turner and right-hand man. He seems to relax in his role as helper and listens to the story. Later, when the class is outside for recess, he runs to Miss Stephanie, visibly upset. "Miss Stephanie, Emma broke my eye!" Miss Stephanie gets down on William's level and checks for marks, but everything seems fine. She asks, "Did Emma hit you, William?" "She hit me on the head and broke my eye!" he says. Miss Stephanie, with William, finds Emma in the play yard and pulls her gently aside. "What happened with William, Emma?" she asks. Emma senses that she could be in trouble but says, "William looked scared so I patted him on the head." She reaches over and does just that, patting him near the eye. William smiles, understanding now that the outgoing girl wasn't trying to hurt him; she was trying to show that she cared. Because of Emma and William's nurturing families, supportive school environment, and caring teacher, they were able to understand what it means to engage in caring interactions in a public realm. It was an early lesson for both in how caring evolves from the family to the increasingly complex domain of public life.

The ability to feel caring, to think caring thoughts about other persons or objects, and to behave in a caring manner may or may not be apparent in the children whom we teach. Likewise, to feel cared for, to think of oneself as worthy of being cared for, and to recognize and accept the caring behavior of others also may or may not be apparent. As illustrated in the preceding vignette, for Emma and William, the ability to give and receive caring behaviors is already fairly advanced as they enter kindergarten. Recently, academic inquiry has focused on how to create caring classrooms and school communities--that is, classrooms and school communities that encourage children to continue to develop caring feelings, thoughts, and behaviors, or to feel, think, and practice them anew. Some of that academic literature will be cited in this article. This new focus on caring is in part the product of national and world events that highlight the apparent dearth of caring among individuals and that raise complex questions: What is meant by caring? How do people develop the ability to care, the ability to become care-full ("full of care") rather than care-less (without care)? How do people decide who and what to care for? Who are the teachers? In other words, is the development of caring the province of home, religious institutions, or schools? If caring is the business of teachers, how can we facilitate the development of caring in the children whom we teach? We see these questions as critical ones, with significant implications for our world in both its private and public domains. These questions underlie our deep concerns about the devastating increase in violence in every sphere of our society, our concerns about the disturbing increase in the number of children and adults seemingly without conscience or the ability to care. Noddings (1992) writes that to care and be cared for are basic human needs but that not all of us learn to care for ourselves, for near and distant others, animals, plants, human-made objects, or ideas. Some "impoverished and dangerous people care for nothing; their lives are not directed by care or ultimate concern. Still others develop a distorted notion of care and do dreadful things in its name. The need to care in our culture is acute.... Not only is the need for caregiving great and rapidly growing, but the need for that special relation--caring--is felt most acutely" (p. xi).

To move toward answering questions related to caring, there are two central ideas that teachers should consider related to caring and its development:

* Caring, as a concept, requires definition.

* Caring behavior develops through interaction over time in our private and public domains.

What Is Caring?

Rogers (1994) writes, "When we think of caring, we usually think of gentle smiles and warm hugs" (p. 33). Goldstein (1998), however, contends that such simplistic, albeit commonly held, definitions of caring position it entirely in the affective domain--a feeling, a personality trait, a temperament--rather than an intellectual act that has "deeply ethical, philosophical and experimental roots" (p. 245). Goldstein (1998, p. 259) and others (Jaggar, 1989; Freedman, 1990) assert that caring cannot be divorced from thought and is both an emotional and an intellectual act; caring is a deliberate moral and intellectual stance rather than simply a feeling.

Noddings (1984) describes caring not as an attribute of personality but as a relation. Caring is not something you...

NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.



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