Attending to social-emotional learning in content-area instruction is one component of ethical teaching. Another is ensuring that students have the knowledge and tools to make ethical decisions that uphold commitments to their family, neighbors, classmates, and future colleagues. Social Conscience and Responsibility addresses both. Editors Bleasdale and Sullivan (both, Univ. of San Francisco) have assembled a set of resources that can inform the teaching of ethics across disciplines in secondary education. This is not a book that sermonizes on what it means to be ethical; rather, each chapter provides practical strategies and detailed lesson plans for adaptation in classrooms. Light on theory and heavy on tools, this is a useful text for practitioners in search of ideas about how to lead engaging lessons that meet students where they are and support them in developing their empathy, ability to reason, and appreciation for moral considerations. At the same time, the opening chapter provides insight into the moral imperatives that teachers must acknowledge in supporting and assessing students as writers, a key consideration to be made when applying any of the lessons provided in a classroom context. Summing Up: Recommended. Professionals.
