Toward Harmony

The argument at the heart of Toward Harmony: Teaching Practices for Connection, Belonging, and Inclusion for All Students is simple but urgent: Students are not failing. Schools are failing to accommodate students’ full humanity, particularly those who learn, behave, or communicate in ways that deviate from the norm. Too often, differences are framed as disruptions.

Student mental health challenges have risen to a crisis level, causing a cascading effect of burnt-out teachers leaving the profession. Well-meaning administrators and educators often rely on tactics rooted in exclusion and isolation: removals, punishments, and labels, which they often realize do not work. Discipline policies and inclusion plans are failing the very children they were meant to support, often because they miss the underlying issues affecting students. To support educators, recent training programs, curricula, and books have focused on restorative practices and social-emotional skill-building, aiming to change how teachers approach students and how students manage emotions. Toward Harmony offers a fresh approach that reaches beyond social-emotional curricula and restorative circles. It engages educators in reflecting on and analyzing their practices while supporting innovative practices to support more students.

Toward Harmony emerged from years of Amy Ballin’s work alongside students and teachers seeking a better way to learn together. She witnessed how transformative it can be when teachers shift from a behavior-management mindset to one of listening, wondering, and adapting. Difference should not be viewed as a deficit but rather as a meaningful part of students' identities and communities. This volume offers an alternative approach, expanding relationships and a sense of belonging through practices grounded in multiple pedagogical frameworks. Disability Studies in Education (DSE) invites us to view disability as a social construct rather than a personal flaw. Transformative social-emotional learning, a term coined by the Center for Academic Social Emotional Learning (CASEL), centers on belonging, identity, and equity. Trauma-informed approaches, which remind us that trauma impacts behavior and impulse control, is also discussed. The book argues that behavior is not an act of defiance. Critical pedagogy, including the work of Freire and Shalaby, calls on us to listen and learn from students.

Toward Harmony is an essential book for a variety or education-oriented readers. Preservice teachers should incorporate it into their reading in preparation for dealing with the students from a variety of backgrounds and needs. College of Education faculty will want to use it as a core textbook in a wide range of classes. Mental health administrators will also find it informative in broadening their understanding of students’ needs.

Perfect for courses such as: Classroom Management and Classroom Community Building; School Social Work; Introductory Teacher Education; Teaching Special Education; Inclusion; Disability Studies; Trauma Informed Approaches; Race, Intersectionality, and Equity in Education; Social-Emotional Teaching and Learning