The Ethics Seminar Guide

The Ethics Seminar Guide raises 32 questions of contemporary ethical, moral and responsibility issues based on the synopsis of 26 Bible stories. The book also describes a Classroom Seminar Circle technique including elements of the Socratic method which asks thoughtful, open-ended questions of a perspective and elements of the seminar process which uses those insights and explores additional perspectives. The Classroom Seminar Circle uses an assigned reading in The Ethics Seminar Guide to engage students in careful reading, critical thinking, initial explanatory writing, speaking, active listening, and final writing incorporating other viewpoints. In short, read, think write, speak, listen, and revise. The optional companion book, Bible Stories for All without the Dogma, A Part of Cultural Literacy, provides a condensed version of each Bible story along with its historical, geographical, and cultural context. The stories did not happen in a vacuum! The guide was written as a result of an encouraging discussion with John Cic­cone, the President of St. Ignatius Loyola Academy, the middle school where the author taught for 14 years. In the course of discussing Walsh’s recently published book, Bible Stories for All without the Dogma, Ciccone mentioned that ethics was a topic of interest in many schools. From that discussion Walsh developed the idea of a companion booklet to explore contemporary issues of ethics based on Bible stories.   In the author’s religion classes he used a seminar approach influenced by his readings and by two teacher workshops held by the Association of Independent Maryland Schools. While the semi­nars appeared to be easy to lead, they involved a great deal of effort  - before, during, and after each seminar. The student involvement and growth was gratifying.  The guide is designed to help students develop a better understanding of the Biblical stories and their influence on Western culture and to explore the universal lessons that transcend the world’s orga­nized religions as students delve into contemporary ethical issues based on Bible stories. 3