Much of the basis for our beliefs about creating a climate of caring come from the Responsive Classrooms approach which involves a belief in seven basic tenets:

• The social curriculum is as important as the academic curriculum.
• How children learn is as important as what children learn.
• The greatest cognitive growth occurs through social interaction.
• There is a set of social skills that children need to learn and practice in order to be successful.
• We know our children individually, culturally, and developmentally
• Knowing the families of the children we teach is as important as knowing the children.
• Teachers and administrators must model the social and academic skills that they wish to teach their students. (R. Kriete, The Morning Meeting Book, 2002)

At The Green School, this means

• We build class contracts that define our goals for the way we treat each other
• We keep each other safe on the inside and the outside
• We solve conflicts with our words rather than our fists
• We work together
• We learn to share our smart thinking with each other.