The entire faculty and staff of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. school has adopted the methodology of the Responsive Classroom. This philosophy embraces the whole child focusing not just on academics but the social conscience as well. To read about Responsive Classroom principles and procedures, please visit their website at www.responsiveclassroom.org.

Guidelines of Responsive Classroom

The Responsive Classroom approach involves seven important guidelines:

1. The social curriculum is as important as the academic curriculum.
2. How children learn is as important as what children learn.
3. The greatest cognitive growth occurs through social interaction.
4. There is a set of social skills that children need to learn and practice in order to be successful. They form the acronym CARES—cooperation, assertion, responsibility, empathy, self-control.
5. We must know our children individually, culturally, and developmentally.
6. Knowing the families of the children we teach is as important as knowing the children.
7. Teachers and administrators must model the social and academic skills that they wish to teach their students.