The Just Community Approach to Care
F. Clark Power and Tatyana A. Makogon
July 13, 1995
In 1977, Carol Gilligan (1977) presented for the first time her stunning critique of Lawrence Kohlberg's moral developmental theory in her Harvard Educational Review essay, "In a Different Voice: Women's Conceptions of Self and Morality," which became the basis for her well-known book In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development (Gilligan, 1982). She concluded that Kohlberg's moral development theory was biased against females because his male longitudinal sample and personal fixation on justice led him to dismiss the morality of care as a relatively immature (stage 3) phenomenon. Readers credit Gilligan for recognizing the true worth of the morality of care through listening to women's experience. Yet at the very time that Gilligan was formulating her female derived theory of care and responsibility as an antidote to Kohlberg's theory of justice and rights, Kohlberg and his colleagues were implementing a caring-centered approach to moral education in a just community alternative high school, a few blocks away from Harvard University (Power & Reimer, 1978). The just community approach, which was applied for the first-time to a public high school setting in 1974, had been piloted in a women's correctional facility several years earlier (Hickey & Scharf, 1980). Oddly Gilligan never commented upon these experiments, which had become the focus of Kohlberg's moral educational efforts.
Perhaps Gilligan's silence about the just community approach and its deliberate pedagogy for fostering care was due to Gilligan's belief that Kohlberg's pedagogy for caring was a thinly disguised pedagogy for justice. After all, Kohlberg did call his method the just community approach. In Gilligan's (1982) view, caring and justice, the morality of responsibility and the morality of rights, are "disparate modes of human experience that are in the end connected" (p. 174). In her view , the morality of caring and responsibility is premised on non-violence; the morality of justice and rights is premised on equality. Gilligan does not deny the importance of either morality, but sees them as discrete strands that must be interwoven. In Kohlberg's view, caring and justice are not two moralities that become connected later in the life cycle, but facets of the same morality. Kohlberg's appreciation for the value of care is clear in his insistence that the optimal setting for the development of justice is in a community in which all members are committed to caring for each other. In a community, members give time and effort towards improving the quality of their common life; and this intensive social experience is fertile ground for adolescent development.
Care and Justice in The Gadfly
In order to explore the relationship between care and justice and the differences between Kohlberg's and Gilligan's views, we will follow Gilligan's method of considering an example from literature. The tension between care and justice is an age-old issue and has been a popular theme in literature. Possibly one of the most dramatic treatments of this theme in the last century is the British novel, The Gadfly, by Ethel L.Voynich (1897/1991). Although this novel has remained obscure in America, it was one of the most widely read novels in the former Soviet Union because of its inspiring portrait of two young revolutionaries, Arthur and Gemma. The novel takes place in Italy and focuses on a tumultuous relationship between Arthur, who first appears as a nineteen-year old seminary student, and his mentor-confessor, Padre Montanelli. Arthur had recently joined a revolutionary group, "The Young Italy," which was devoted to driving the Austrians out of the country. From Arthur's perspective, the political aims of the group merged with the imperatives of the Catholic priesthood and the Christian Gospel: "It is the mission of the priesthood to lead the world to higher ideals and aims .... because a priest is a teacher of Christianity, and the greatest of all revolutionists was Christ." (p. 28, 29).
Montanelli worried about Arthur's affiliation with a group that was seen as subversive and dangerous, and he tried unsuccessfully to talk him into leaving the group. One day Montanelli was called to Rome for promotion to Bishop. Eager to accept this honor and yet fearing that Arthur may be in grave and immediate danger, Montanelli put the decision in Arthur's hands: "Only say to me 'stay' and I will give up this journey" (p. 32). With Arthur's assurance, Montanelli reluctantly departed leaving Arthur in the hands of an unknown but reputable confessor. Presuming to trust his new confessor as he had Montanelli, Arthur spoke of his membership in "The Young Italy" and revealed the names of some of its student-members. The confessor turned out to be a spy, and Arthur and some students were arrested and put into prison for a short time. Shortly after Arthur learned that his confessor had betrayed him, he discovered that Montanelli was his biological father. Crushed by these revelations and rejected by Gemma for having sabotaged "The Young Italy", he feigned his own suicide and slipped off to South America. There he experienced terrible physical cruelty and humiliation.
He reappeared in Italy thirteen years later, with injuries to his face, arm, and leg that had left him unrecognizable, even to Gemma, who had become a key figure in the liberation movement. Called the Gadfly, he declared his aims in life were to fight priests and foment revolution. He was a brilliant pamphleteer, and he directed his fiercest attacks against Montanelli, who by then had become a Cardinal, widely known for his generosity and mercy. Caught attempting to smuggle guns in the city where Montanelli presided, the Gadfly was arrested and put into prison. The Governor tried to arrange a swift military trial, which was certain to lead to the Gadfly's execution. Montanelli, not knowing that the Gadfly was his son, at first intervened to protect the Gadfly's right to a civilian trial. But the Governor warned Montanelli that innocent lives were likely to be lost should the Gadfly's co-conspirators attempt to free him by fomenting an uprising during an upcoming religious holiday.
Perplexed, Montanelli arranged to speak to the Gadfly in person. Oblivious that the Gadfly was his son., Montanelli told him that he was about to do something "utterly unprecedented." Explaining that throughout his life at considerable personal cost he had opposed capital punishment and restrained military violence, he shared his dilemma ("If I consent [to the court martial], I kill you, if I refuse, I run the risk of killing innocent persons" p. 223). He then put the resolution of the dilemma in the Gadfly's hands "in order to go down to my grave without blood on my hands" (p. 224). The Gadfly exploded with rage at this abdication of responsibility, which, the Gadfly recalled, repeated what Montanelli did years ago when he handed over to the young Author his decision to accept the Bishopric. Then revealing himself as Arthur, the Gadlfy handed the decision back to Montanelli with an added condition: "You must give up your priesthood or give up me" (p. 231). Failing to persuade the Gadfly to allow him to remain a priest, Montanelli consented to his son's death. Shortly thereafter Montanelli became insane, renounced his religion, and died from an aneurism of the heart.
Lessons from The Gadfly
The Gadfly is replete with dilemmas juxtaposing care and justice. Before he learns that the Gadfly is his son, Montanelli faces a classical justice dilemma: Should he defend the Gadfly's right to a civil trial and risk the lives of innocent people or protect innocent lives by allowing the Gadfly's unjust execution? Montanelli says that he is unwilling to resolve this dilemma because "I do not want to go to my grave with blood on my hands." Is his response rooted in an ethic of care that counsels non-violence; or is it rooted in a cowardice that avoids responsibility for acting justly? When Montanelli learns that the Gadfly is his son, he does not hesitate to offer to help him. Should the fact that the Gadfly is his son have made such a difference? Is this a choice of care taking precedence over justice, and is such a choice a moral one? Finally, Montanelli must choose between his identity as a priest and the life of his son. Is his final and fateful decision either just or caring?
Insight into the concept of caring comes from Montanelli's decision at the beginning of the novel to accept a bishopric at the expense of grave harm to his son. At one level, his choice involves caring for his personal interests versus those of his son. Yet more is involved than a simple choice between egoism and altruism. Montanelli fails to take responsibility for his decision by asking Arthur to decide. Could Montanelli have expected anything other than that Arthur minimize the dangers of his membership in "The Young Italy" and support his confessor's promotion to bishop?
The Concept of Care
Caring in its full moral sense, as we can learn from these examples, entails more than a willingness to sacrifice oneself for another. Caring involves a sensitive responsiveness to the other that is based in an engaged attentiveness and openness to the other's experience. The word care is a derivative of the Anglo Saxon cearu, which means sorrow or anxiety (Webster, 1983). Care thus refers primarily to feelings of concern and solicitude for others. For care to become moral, the emotional side of care must be informed by an understanding of the other, which is achieved through role-taking. Nodding (1984) elaborates role-taking must be "receptive" in attempting to see and feel the world as others see and feel it. Ironically, caring, which flows out of connection, requires separation in order to recognize and respect the autonomy of the other. Without a respect for autonomy of the other, care becomes smothering. The centrality of role-taking in the process of care is, as we have noted, illustrated at the critical junctures in The Gadfly, when Montanelli and Arthur, although having strong feelings for each other, remain trapped in their own pain and "gaze across a barrier they cannot pass" (232). They cannot let each other be as they really are but try to force each other into their ideal for the other. Only Gemma emerges as a truly caring person. Unlike Montanelli, she gives up her own perspective and recognizing Arthur behind the Gadfly's mask is able to bring him some comfort.
In our view, the linkage between justice and care in its mature moral sense is through the processes of role-taking and respect for autonomy, processes that Kohlberg locates at the heart of moral development. Although these processes emphasize separation more than connection, they are essential to dynamics of care because they foster a more attentive awareness of the other, while checking the desire to merge with or control the other as an extension of the self. The separation that these processes entail is a distancing from the other for the sake of seeing the other more clearly and allowing the other to function as an individual. Role-taking should not be confused with projection nor autonomy with independence. Role-taking is an interpretative procedure and requires intense communication. Autonomy is a moral philosophical concept that refers to the self as a lawgiver or legislator in an assembly of lawgivers or legislators. Autonomy is thus concerned with the way in which moral duties originate and is not a part of the interplay between dependence and interdependence.
Both Kohlberg and Gilligan have noted that a principal difference between care and justice is that they are generally practiced in different spheres of life. Care is best suited for the private world of family and friends. It is a virtue of enduring and intimate relationships, and is characterized by attentive responsiveness. Justice is best suited for the public world of politics and work. It is a virtue of the impersonal social order, and is characterized by fairness, particularly to the least advantaged. One might expect The Gadfly, which earned its reputation as a book about revolutionary heroes, to be book about justice; but it is clearly a book about tragic love. The critical action occurs within the confines of Gemma's home and Arthur's prison cell. It is not surprising from Gilligan's point of view to find that Gemma was far more proficient in this world than Arthur or Montanelli. In very different ways, both the Gadfly and Montanelli strive heroically for justice. At critical junctures in their lives, their pursuit of justice for the masses requires separation from the person to whom they are most deeply attached. Thus, for example, Montanelli leaves Arthur for his priestly work; and the Gadfly leaves Gemma to smuggle guns into Italy.
Seeing caring and justice as responses to different kinds of social situations undercuts the notion that they are rival or dichotomous moralities with disparate psychological processes. On the other hand, in their research on the just community approach, Power, Higgins, and Kohlberg (1989) note that care and justice imply different modes of judgment with different motivational implications. Caring proceeds from an awareness of one's relationship with the other and this relationship brings with it a special sense of responsibility for the other's welfare; justice proceeds from an awareness of the other as an individual and with a limited obligation to respect that other's rights. We see in The Gadfly how Montanelli's relationship with Arthur brings with it a duty to promote Arthur's well being that goes beyond the duties of justice. If no real connection existed between Montanelli and Arthur, Montanelli could have left for Rome with a clear conscience. Justice would not have required that Montanelli consider sacrificing his career to protect Arthur, but care did. Arthur's profound disappointment in Montanelli is due not only to the fact that Montanelli chose to leave him at such a vulnerable time but that Montanelli shifted responsibility for this decision onto Arthur's shoulders.
Gilligan at times implies other. more decisive distinctions between caring and justice, for example that caring is flexible, engaged, and focussed on persons, but justice is rigid, abstract, and focussed on rules. Kohlberg, however, consistently avoids such an understanding of justice by drawing a distinction between a rule and a principle. Rules, like the Ten Commandments, forbid certain kinds of behavior, such as stealing and lying, and require other kinds of behavior like obedience. Rules, however, can come into conflict, as in Kohlberg's Heinz Dilemma, in which a man must decide whether to steal a drug to save his wife's life once all alternative ways of obtaining the drug have been exhausted. In this dilemma, the rule not to steal conflicts with another rule to protect life. This dilemma can only be resolved by an appeal to a higher order principle, such as respect for persons, which gives value to the rules themselves and provides an objective standpoint from which to deal with complex moral problems. The Gadfly is a good example of the kind of person Gilligan might criticize as rigid and more concerned with rules than persons. He sees the Catholic Church as upholding the old, unjust social order, and, therefore, feels perfectly justified in the use of violence against priests and in asking Montanelli to renounce his priesthood. Although the Gadfly may be seen as lacking in care, particularly in what he asks of Montanelli, the Gadfly is also lacking in justice in so far as he refuses to take a principled position to those he regards as his enemies.
Moral Education
The challenge for moral education is to develop an approach that teaches both care and justice in preparing students for their roles in family, friendships, work, and society. One way in which teachers have traditionally attempted to foster these and other values has been through the presentation of role models in literature, such as The Gadfly. William Bennett's (1993) Book of Virtues is an excellent sourcebook for this kind of method. Bennett and many other character educators assume that by encountering examples of virtuous people in literature, children will come to understand their virtues and be inspired to follow in their footsteps.
While the inspirational value of literature cannot be denied, the fact that a translatation of The Gadfly was in immensely popular in the Soviet Union but almost ignored in the Great Britain and the United States illustrates a major limitation of the moral exemplar method. The use of literature to inspire does not necessarily challenge students to think critically. Moreover, such a use of literature may actually lead students to gloss over significant moral conflicts, dilemmas, and ambiguities in the text. For instance, although most readers in the former Soviet Union regarded The Gadfly primarily as a celebration of revolutionary courage, we see it as an honest and searching exploration of love, which raises significant ehtical questions about revolutionary zeal. As a teaching tool, the greatest value of The Gadfly is not in the examples that it holds up for imitation but in the problems and tensions that it opens up for reflection and discussion. It does not give answers but challenges students to develop new ways of thinking.
Literature is particularly powerful vehicle of moral education because it brings students so close to real life and encourages them to do the role taking that is at the heart of mature justice and care. Yet literature cannot substitute for life. Students need to learn justice and care through the practice of justice and care; and for that reason, Kohlberg and his colleagues developed the just community approach to moral education.
The Just Community Approach to Moral Education
The just community approach draws on two different traditions in moral education theory. The first is the psychological tradition expounded by Dewy (1916/1966) and Piaget (1932/1965 ), who proposed that schools should become democracies nurturing moral development by providing children with opportunities for cooperative decision-making. The second is the sociological tradition articulated by Durkheim (1925/1973) who advocated that schools should become communities fostering moral socialization by building strong group norms and group attachment. When these traditons are integrated, as occurred in some Israeli kibbutzim and in camps for delinquent youth established by the great Soviet educator, Makarenko (1931/1951), moral education flourishes. When these traditions are not not combined, however, each has potentially serious limitations. The democratic tradition has a tendency to drift into an aimless relativism and individualism, epitomized by the Free School Movement of the 1960's and 1970's. The collective tradition has a tendency to drift into rigid conformism and authoritarianism, as happened in some Soviet schools until the time of Perestroika in the late 1980's.
Building Community in the Large High School
Just communities differ from conventional American high schools and classrooms by providing students with a sense of belonging to a group that is responsive to individual concerns, while also having clearly defined group goals and commitments. The typical American junior high and high school afford little opportunity for students to experience a sense of community during the school day. Large numbers of students and teachers, ability level grouping, the segmentation of the curriculum into discrete subject areas, and a division of labor that isolates the functions of teaching, counseling, and administration combine to create a highly impersonal bureaucratic atmosphere. The large high school has succeeded in providing a diverse and specialized curriculum, well stocked libraries, state of the art audio-visual and computer technologies, and successful sports teams. Yet the large high school has utterly failed to provide an atmosphere in which adolescents can grow socially and morally. The designers of the "comprehensive high school," the model for the contemporary large school, foresaw that their structure would isolate students from each other and their teachers, and thus recommended an extensive program of extracurricular activities as a remedial way of building community (National Education Association of the U.S. Commission on the reorganization of secondary education, 1928).
Extracurricular activities have succeeded to some extent in helping those students who participate feel a greater sense of connection to the school and to invest themselves more strongly in their school work. These activities have also facilitated a spirit of caring by providing opportunities for cooperation and for friendships to form. In our view, however, extracurricular activities cannot be relied upon as the principal means of building community or teaching students how to care for at least two reasons. First, participation in extracurricular activities is generally limited to those students are most likely to succeed in school because of favorable home environments and meaningful social engagements in youth groups apart from the school. Unfortunately at-risk students, most in need of extracurricular participation, are the very students who do not join them because of a lack of interest, information, skills, or academic eligibility. Second, extracurricular activities generally do not provide any direct opportunities for students to reflect upon their interactions with others or to develop their social skills. In activities, such as drama and athletics, directors and coaches emphasize cooperation and teamwork for the sake of a successful performance rather than for their own sake. They tend to regard the sense of cohesiveness and group morale that develop through such activities as a byproduct and not an explicit goal.
In contrast to the extracurricular participation, the just community approach makes building community an explicit and intrinsic goal of the school day. In this way, the experience of being a member of a community is available to all students, particularly those who are alienated. A pre-requisite for building community in schools is small size; large schools breed crime and alienation (Garbarino, 1978). Yet erecting or even preserving small schools hardly seems practical at a time when budget constraints seem to make consolidation inevitable. The only practical way of coping with large junior high and high schools is to establish meaningful living-learning subunits within the school.
Teacher-Student Communication: Mary's "Cheating"
Small size facilitates face-face interaction among students and between teachers and students. Such interactions are necessary but not sufficient for communual relationships to form. Although small size brings people together, it does not guarantee that their interactions will be fruitful. What teachers and students do with their opportunities to come together is crucial. Consider, for example, the following incident that occurred in a small junior high school. Mary , a bright, quiet, and well behaved seventh-grader was selected by her teacher, Mrs. Smith, to be in a small accelerated math group. She and several others were given a special text and allowed to work on their own while the other students were in class. Mary 's group met together at the start of each chapter to study the new material. They then did workbook practice problems on their own. One day Mrs. Smith left her class to check on the accelerated group whom she expected to see doing their workbook problems. To her surprise she discovered that Mary was reading a book assigned for English class. When she asked Mary where her workbook was, Mary replied, "Oh, I finished my work and lent my book to Joe." Mrs. Smith proceeded to find Joe copying Mary 's answers into his workbook. After confiscating the texts and admonishing Joe, she confronted Mary:. "Mary you have been such a good student all along, I never would have guessed that you are a cheater." She reminded Mary that she had been told at the beginning of the school year that students were permitted to work together but that copying was prohibited. Finally, Mrs. Smith admonished Mary telling her that her cheating was a serious infraction and would be punished as such. Confused and on the verge of tears, Mary objected, "I didn't mean to do anything wrong, let me explain." Mrs. Smith cut her off. "Mary , you cheated, and I am terribly disappointed in you. I thought you were such a good person. There is no need to discuss it further."
Mary left school shaken. She did not think that she was cheating; but rather, she thought she was being particularly kind: "I thought I was being a Mother Theresa." The practice of sharing workbooks was common and generally expected by the students. The next day she talked over her reactions with her homeroom teacher, Mrs. King, who, alarmed to learn that copying was a widespread practice, called a class meeting. Mrs. King began the meeting by asking, "Doesn't everyone here think it is wrong to copy or to let someone else copy your work?" No one raised their hand. All agreed that everyone should do their own work. In spite of this, Mrs. King went on to preach about the value of honesty. Mary left the meeting feeling rejected by the teachers, who believed that they should present a "united front." She also felt abandoned by her fellow students, whom she believed were "pressured" to go along with the teachers rather than speak honestly. The day following the class discussion of cheating, Mary reported that students were lending each other their books again, as if nothing had happened.
Reflecting on the incident, Mary 's teachers felt caught on the horns of a dilemma between justice and care. Justice, in their view, demanded that they punish Mary for cheating, as they would any other student. Care, in their view, demanded that Mary be given special consideration; after all, Mary had a spotless disciplinary record. On a deeper level, Mary 's teachers wondered whether they would really be caring if they ignored this incident. Students sometimes need "tough love." The teachers also had to deal with the fact that Mary had done more than break an impersonal rule; Mary had violated their trust. Although the teachers handled this case according to established procedures and tried not to be unduly harsh, Mary , nevertheless, felt that she was not treated either fairly or in a caring manner. She would have felt better had Mrs. Smith listened to her side of the story. However, the system of discipline in this school, as in most junior high and high schools, does not guarantee students a voice in the disciplinary process.
The fact that Mary did not think that she was acting dishonestly when she gave her book to Joe should have been taken into account before she was punished. Mary believed that she acted in a morally exemplary way, "like Mother Theresa." She never even recognized a dilemma between helping or cheating. Her dilemma was whether to give Joe a break or to hold the accelerated group up and force him to work as hard as she did to answer the questions. The teachers found it hard to believe that Mary did not see sharing her answers as wrong. They pointed out in the beginning of the school year the distinction between helping a student to find the right answer and simply allowing another student to copy the answers. Yet that distinction failed to impress itself on Mary or her peers. They thought of most homework and workbook assignments as "grunt work," which they should try to complete as quickly and as painlessly as possible. Students generally agree that sharing answers on a test is cheating, but few see harm in sharing them for everyday assignments. Of course, teachers recognize that sharing answers on everyday assignments is not as serious as on a test. They, nevertheless, object to students sharing answers when they should be doing their own work..
The gap between the teachers' and the students' interpretation of what is cheating goes beyond these simple distinctions to a more basic difference over why cheating is wrong to begin with. Generally the teachers think of cheating from a developmentally advanced stage, as undermining both the learning and the grading processes (which in the American educational system are highly individualized). Because the teachers are responsible for the maintenance of this system, they tend to take cheating as an affront both to their authority as teachers and to themselves as persons. Often students at the junior high and high school level think of cheating as a non-moral issue or from a relatively low stage, as violating a teacher initiated rule. The obligation to obey that rule varies depending on how vigilantly teachers monitor it and how severely they punish violations. If teachers make an effort to monitor honesty in taking tests but not on workbook assignments, then students assume that there is nothing wrong with copying workbook assignments.
There is be a similar developmental gap in the way in which teachers and students think about helping. Some students may think of helping as responding to a concrete and immediate need, as pleasing one's peers, or as bowing to peer pressure. The teachers, however, may think of caring in a higher stage way that takes into account a responsibility for helping one's peer to work on his or her own. In addition to these differences in reasoning about honesty and caring, teachers and students belong to different social worlds with different expectations and responsibilities. The students are not held accountable for enforcing the rules of the school, the teachers are. On the other hand, the students hold each other accountable for meeting peer expectations, such as helping out with assignments. At the junior high and high school levels, students regard the approval of their peers as far more important than that of their teachers. How can the teachers effectively communicate their insights into honesty and caring to their students and help their students to take more responsibility for discipline? As we have seen, attempts to do so through punishment and direct instruction typically fail because they do not address students' developmental stage or their peer culture.
In order to promote students' moral development, teachers must be willing take the role of their students by entering into their social world and engaging their points of view. The purpose of this kind of role-taking is to help students to move to a level of reasoning and responsibility by seeing the problems and limitations of their less mature outlook. We admit, however, that it is by no means easy for teachers to enter into this kind of dialogue with students. Genuine dialogue demands that both parties listen carefully to each other and are open to change as a result of their interaction. Change always entails risk. Montanelli and Arthur failed in their attempt to communicate because genuine role-taking may have threatened each other's cherished positions as priest and revolutionary.
Just Communities and Communication
The just community approach helps teachers with the communication task in several ways. From a purely organizational standpoint, the just community approach establishes structures and processes that facilitate teacher to student, student to student, and teacher to teacher communication about moral issues. Key to the just community approach is the weekly community meeting in which all of the students and teachers in the community openly discuss and deal with matters of mutual concern. Regular, as opposed to ad hoc crisis-resolution, meetings are essential for students and teachers to become accustomed to resolving problems together. The community meeting is where teachers and students formulate their rules and the punishments for violating them. In Mary's case, a community meeting would have given students and teachers an effective forum for arriving at an agreed upon policy for copying workbook assignments. A second structure essential to the just community approach is a fairness committee of several students and at least one teacher. This committee is charged with rule enforcement and conflict resolution. In a just community, Mrs. Smith would have taken her complaint about Mary and Joe to the fairness committee for resolution. The fairness committee would have guaranteed Mary an opportunity to tell her side of the story and would have meted out a punishment that the students and teachers thought was fair.
Although shared decision-making relieves teachers of much of the burden of "policing " the school, teachers sometimes feel threatened by giving students too much responsibility. There concern is understandable because students are immature and in need of adult guidance. On the other hand, students can learn responsibility only by being given responsibility. In fact, many students at the junior high school and high school level are given considerable babysitting responsibilities, which they generally undertake with great success. The just community approach does not turn discipline over to the students but invites students to join the teachers in solving problems that arise in their common life.
Community Norms
The just community approach further helps teachers with the communication task by bridging the cultural abyss between the student peer group and the teachers. By becoming involved in the making and enforcing of disciplinary rules and policies, students and teachers experience a sense of shared responsibility for the school. In this way students and teachers feel that they are members of one community. Much of the research on just community programs has focused on the development of community norms. These norms have two distinguishing characteristics. First, they represent the shared expectations of teachers and students. A school has community norms when the students and teachers use the words "we" and "our" and not "they" and "I" to refer to rules and expectations for conduct.
In our view, teachers and administrators spend far too much time codifying rules and displaying them in handbooks or on wall charts. That time would be far better spent in community meetings, which give students a sense of ownership of the discipline of the school. Second, the norms represent values related to community. Typically teachers and administrators focus on the behavioral content of rules rather than on their value content. They give more attention to articulating what is wrong than they do to explaining why it is wrong. Discipline becomes a moral educational tool once teachers help students to consider the values behind expectations. Community norms are norms with a value content that specifically relates to building community.
The foundation of all the community norms is the norm of caring. Caring provides the social glue within a community. It is the norm that binds all members of the community to each other. In most schools, caring is a function of voluntary relationships. Students are obliged to care only for their friends and members of their clique. In just communities, however, caring is a function of the communal bond that unites all members. Students are obliged to care for all members of the group, that is, to take an active interest in promoting the welfare of a community member, even to the point of self-sacrifice. The norm of caring does not oblige that all members of the community become close friends, which would be unrealistic. On the other hand, the norm of caring obliges that community members treat each other not only with respect (as justice requires) but with real concern. For example, in most schools, it is common to find that unpopular students are either ignored or teased. Although justice forbids teasing unpopular students, caring forbids ignoring them.
Moral Discussion
In a just community, Mary's belief that she was helping Joe by allowing him to copy her answers would have been raised as an issue for group discussion. The moral discussion research indicates that teachers are most effective as leaders of discussions when they facilitate student participation (Colby, Kohlberg, Fenton, Speicher-Dubin,& Lieberman, 1977). This requires that they give up their role as authorities and encourage students to reflect upon and criticize each others' point of view. As members of the community, teachers can and should present their own opinions. As adults leaders of the school community, moreover, teachers should advocate the values of community and policies that are consistent with such values. Advocacy, however, should always be tempered with the realization that development is not a passsive process in which the students receive moral knowledge from their teachers. Moral development is a constructive activity in which the students make meaning through social interaction. Advocacy must always be balanced with facilitation to be effective.
A community meeting discussion of cheating on workbook assignments was , in fact, held in the Y.E.S. (Your Educational Success) Program , a just community school-within-a-school for at-risk high school students (Power & Power, 1992). There students felt free to admit that they lent each other their assignments. The teachers, who involved the students in many cooperative learning activities, helped the students to see the benefits of doing certain assignments on their own; and the students and teachers agreed on an honor code policy that was very rarely violated. Through the discussion of sharing answers, most of the students accepted the teachers' arguments that real caring usually means encouraging others to do their own assignments.
The Caring Teacher
The caring teacher is a teacher who is able to maintain the balance between facilitation that gives the students an opportunity to work on their own and advocacy that gives students direction. Facilitation can lapse into permissiveness if teachers do not have challenging goals and expectations for their students. Similarly advocacy can lapse into authoritarianism if teachers do not genuinely listen to their students and give them the opportunity to express themselves. Traditional models of the caring teacher in the United States and in the former Soviet Union have generally emphasized the need to sacrifice for students as much as possible and to protect students as much as possible. In our view, these models put too much pressure on teachers by placing all responsibility on the teachers' shoulders and failing to address the role of the student peer group. Moreover, these models lead teachers to equate caring with controlling. Operating within a hierarchical bureaucratic system that, nevertheless, asks them to be a second parent to children, it is no wonder that teachers become frustrated to the point of exhaustion. The just community approach recognizes a need to restructure schools in ways that promote communication and the sharing of responsibility among teachers and students.
Conclusion
In the context of community, caring both a characteristic of individuals and of the group as a whole. A caring group is one in which all of the members take an interest in each other and try to improve the quality of their common life. Growth cannot take place on the rocky soil of indifference. The development of justice and the development of care are best nurtured on the rich soil of community in which attentive role-taking has become a norm.
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