Building Moral Communities: A Guide for Educators

MICHAEL SCHULMAN, Ph.D., is the author of Bringing Up a Moral Child: A New Approach for Teaching Your Child To Be Kind, Just, and Responsible (Addison-Wesley, 1985; revised edition, Doubleday Books, 1994), The Passionate Mind: Bringing Up an Intelligent and Creative Child (The Free Press, 1991; a Book-of-the-Month Club selection), and chapters on the development of moral motivation and intelligence in The Handbook of Positive Psychology (edited by C. R. Snyder and Shane J. Lopez; Oxford University Press, 2002). He has also written professional and popular articles on childrearing, psychotherapy, and antisocial behavior, including articles for Parents and Working Mother magazines and the “FamilyTalk” column in the newspaper Her NY. He has been a featured guest on many major television and radio talk shows (Oprah, Sally Jessy Rafael, The CBS Morning Show, among others), speaking about moral education and creativity.He is chairman of the Columbia University Seminar on Ethics, Moral Education, and Society and is a psychologist for Leake & Watts, a child care agency, where he incorporates “moral motivation” procedures into his clinical work with inner city adolescents in residential treatment. He has also consulted for public and private schools on introducing values education programs into their curricula, and was the Director of Ethical Education for the Ethical Culture Society of Queens, N.Y. His approach to the prevention of antisocial behavior is described in his chapter, “The Prevention of Antisocial Behavior Through Moral Motivation Training (or Why Isn’t There More Street Crime?),” in the book, Protecting the Children (edited by Raymond Lorion; Haworth Press, 1990). He has also been an advisor to public and private television production companies on values education programming. Dr. Schulman taught psychology at Yeshiva University’s Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology and at Rutgers University, Fordham University, and Hunter College. He has also been an acting teacher, director, and playwright, and has authored a number of widely read books and articles on theatre and acting.