Robert coles theory on child development

Robert Coles is a child psychiatrist, professor at Harvard University, and author of more than fifty books. He is best known for his explorations of children's lives and books that explore their moral, political, and spiritual sensibilities.

He is also known as an eloquent spokesman for voluntary and community service — the subject of his book, A Call to Service. In addition, he has written literary criticism, numerous biographies, reviews, poetry, social commentary, several children's books, and regular columns for the New Republic, New Oxford Review, and American Poetry Review.

Robert Coles

Coles describes himself variously as a doctor, child psychiatrist, oral historian, social anthropologist, teacher, friend, storyteller, busybody, and nuisance.

Interviewers, journalists, and reviewers often seize on the apparent contradictions — he is a physician without a conventional practice who teaches college literature; a psychiatrist who rejects much of the langua