Communicating values is at the heart of education. Intertwined with the processes and procedures of schooling, a host of values are taught every day. Education, therefore, carries with it a social and moral imperative. If we are to help students avoid moral bankruptcy, we cannot have a value-neutral education. A basic feature of the social and moral imperative of education is to help students see the connectedness of all things--social, personal, religious--to the past, to the natural world, to each other, and to the eternal. Students learn about connections through a curriculum that focuses on a core of common learning and includes our shared use of symbols (language), our sense of history (a common heritage incorporating both Western and non-Western studies), our relationship with nature, and our shared activities of work, leisure, and religion. Through a core of common learning, through the way we organize the school, by the climate we create, by the care with which we educate our teachers, and by the example they set, we convey social and moral imperatives to students. (Author)