ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter is to introduce elementary school counselors to a new and exciting vision for elementary school education, one that will rely heavily on elementary school counseling programs and their people-building mission of teaching children to care and to build caring communities. The elementary schools of the 21st century will be concerned with not only getting children ready for school, but getting schools ready for children (Boyer, 1995; Houston, 2001). They will accomplish this end by focusing on six crucial Cs designed to build strong cohesive classroom communities, which lay the foundation for successful classrooms (Boyer, 1995; Houston, 2001; Sapon-Shevin, 1999). Those Cs are caring connections, communication, collaboration, community building, a commitment to character (child advocacy), and a curriculum with coherence that relates classroom to life learning (Houston, 2001). Sapon-Shevin (1999) said it best when she stated this simple truth.
