‘I Intend Not to Roll My Eyes When I Don’t like My Partner’: Fourth-Graders’ Intentions to Care

ABSTRACT

This self-study describes my year-long investigation to create caring community in my fourth-grade classroom. An introspective and dialogic pedagogy of intention-setting revealed students’ experiences of taken-for-granted uncaring. This window into students’ experiences afforded me opportunities to model care. Intentionality, dialogue, and collective commitment helped students learn to conceive of their own justifications and methods for caring across differences of ability, culture, and race. The sensitivity of self-study to my students’ learning gave me patience and courage in the unchartered and uncertain process of pedagogical innovation. The students’ inclinations to care imply possibilities for a care (versus duty) based morality.

KEYWORDS:

• Care ethics
• relational ethics
• moral education
• social emotional learning
• classroom management

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. This story has been changed significantly, while maintaining the spirit of the situation, to protect the participants’ rights to anonymity.