Two books that may help with children's education

Teaching Children Science Hands-On Nature Study in North America, 1890-1930 by Sally Gregory Kohlstedt. In the The American Historical Review (February, 2011), Bruce Kimball writes
"In successive chapters, Kohlstedt presents thorough accounts of the central individuals and institutions that developed nature study and disseminated it into various domains: the Cook County Normal School and the Chicago Institute at the University of Chicago provided a central hub for the Midwest and the nation; New York City Progressive educators, particularly at Teachers College, advanced models of nature study for urban schools throughout the country; and “Cornell's highly successful rural nature study initiative was imitated in states and universities across North America” (p. 78). These accounts insightfully probe the reflexive influence between the autonomous nature study movement and contemporaneous Progressive educators who advocated similar principles and reforms: appealing to students' interest, incorporating activity and direct experience into the formal curriculum, encouraging teachers to devise and modify their own syllabi, and promoting “a number of public reform issues, ranging from conservation to sexual hygiene” (p. 137). These tenets also ensured that nature study education would remain highly diverse, eschewing prescription and encouraging experimentation and innovation at the local level.
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During the 1920s the ideology, the program, and the very term “nature study” were supplanted by “science” within the public schools, although the movement persevered in external institutions such as “parks, summer camps, and recreational facilities” (p. 226). Kohlstedt attributes this eclipse largely to the opposition from advocates of formal “science,” particularly psychologist Edward L. Thorndike, who argued that nature study “was tainted by the ‘vice’ of ‘sentimentality’” (p. 171), lacked the conceptual rigor of science, and neglected the physical sciences, especially physics and chemistry. This criticism was tinged with fears of the “feminization” of science, since women had become major advocates and participants in the nature study movement, which also provided them significant opportunities for leadership and professional advancement (pp. 171, 146)."

In a different direction, there is the upcoming book by autuism specialist Simon Baron-Cohen Zero Degrees of Empathy: A New Theory of Human Cruelty. Some of the contents of the book are described in the article The science of empathy:
"Empathy itself is the most valuable resource in our world. Given this assertion, it is puzzling that in the school curriculum empathy figures hardly at all, and in politics, business, the courts or policing it is rarely if ever on the agenda. We can see examples among our political leaders of the value of empathy, as when Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk sought to understand and befriend each other, crossing the divide in Apartheid South Africa, but the same has not yet been achieved between Israel and Palestine, or between Washington and Iraq or Afghanistan. And, for every day that empathy is not employed in such corners of the world, more lives are lost.

I think we have taken empathy for granted, and thus to some extent overlooked it. Psychology as a science virtually ignored it for a century. Educators focusing on literacy and mathematics have also largely ignored it. We just assume empathy will develop in every child, come what may. We put little time, effort or money into nurturing it. Our politicians almost never mention it, despite the fact that they need it more than anyone. Until recently, neuroscientists hardly questioned what empathy is."