<HTML>On Tue, 13 Apr 1999, Michelle Farber described her experience discussing
the Kosovo situation with her high school students and her surprise at
their mostly negative reaction to giving more help to the refugees.
I have not been a classroom teacher for a long time, but I encourage a
(re)reading of Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of development of moral
reasoning.
High school is just the age when students (can be encouraged to) grapple
with the relationship of "our group" to "their group" and how principles
of justice may/should override group identification. But the process is
slow and dialogical, and can only progress one step at a time. Text can
be a stimulus to such dialogue but one must always be wary of thinking
that knowing text is the same as understanding it, or that even
understanding text is the same as willingness to act upon it. I commend
Ms. Farber and all our colleagues who bring their students' attention to
the deep moral and Jewish issues that bear on the current tragedy in
Kosovo.
Larry Laufman, Ed.D.
Baylor College of Medicine
Houston, Texas, USA</HTML>
