KHEC Repository of Resources 7
The War for Children’s Minds by Stephen Law. (2007), Florence, KY: Routledge, c/o Taylor & Francis, Inc. Stephen Law maintains that behind the headlines on the conflict in Iraq and global terrorism, a deeper battle is raging over children and the values they should adopt. Political and religious leaders have been joined by the popular press in attacks on “liberal parenting,” calling for a return to authority and religious tradition. Law addresses these questions: How do we raise good children and how do we make good citizens? He urges us to re-evaluate the liberal tradition of thinking about morality. Tackling authoritarian rhetoric head-on, he argues that children should learn about right and wrong and respect for others, but that their education should be grounded in the hard-won values of the Enlightenment. Taking on neo-conservatives and religious and media commentators, the book is a call for a liberal, philosophically informed approach to raising children. Law exposes the weaknesses of arguments calling for a return to authoritarian styles of moral education.
Building Moral Communities: A Guide for Educators by Michael Schulman, Ph.D. The Council for Spiritual and Ethical Education, Portland, OR, 2006. Although this resource does not contain lesson plans or curriculum modules, it does set a detailed framework for recreating a school (and other learning environments) as a moral community. Some of the chapters are highly relevant to our interests, e.g., 'How Children Develop Morals and Moral Styles', 'Service Learning', 'Rules and Discipline', 'Parent Involvement', and 'The School and Social Problems: Sex, Alcohol, and Drugs.'
Dr. Schulman also is the author of Bringing Up a Moral Child: A New Approach for Teaching Your Child to Be Kind, Just, and Responsible (Doubleday Books, 1994) and The Passionate Mind: Bringing Up an Intelligent and Creative Child (The Free Press, 1991). He is chairman of the Columbia University Seminar on Moral Education, and Supervising Psychologist for the Leake & Watts Children's Homes, in New York.
Suggested reading list submitted by Harold Saferstein, Humanist Society of Greater Phoenix:
| The Demon-Haunted World | Carl Sagan |
| Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors | Carl Sagan |
| Atheism, The Case Against God | George Smith |
| In Defense of Secular Humanism & What is Secular Humanism? |
Paul Kurtz |
| The Battle For God | Karen Armstrong |
| The End of Faith | Sam Harris |
| god is Not Great | Christopher Hitchens |
| Ingersoll the Magnificent | Joseph Lewis |
| The God Delusion | Richard Dawkins |
| The Philosophy of Humanism | Corliss Lamont |
| Why I Am Not A Christian | Bertrand Russell |
| Constantine's Sword | James Carroll |
| Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism | Susan Jacoby |
| Humanism As The Next Step | Lloyd and Mary Morain |
| Asimov's Guide to the Bible | Isaac Asimov |
| Atlas Shrugged | Ayn Rand |
| Losing Faith in Faith If you can’t find this in a library or bookstore, it can be ordered from Freedom From Religion Foundation, PO Box 750, Madison WI 53701 $20.00 |
Dan Barker |
| Anything by Stephen J. Gould | |
| Almost any novel by James Michener, including The Covenant, Centennial, Chesapeake, Poland, Texas, Space, Caravan, and Iberia |