- Character education promotes core ethical
values as the basis of good character.
Character education holds, as a starting philosophical
principle, that there are widely shared, pivotally important core
ethical values – such as caring, honesty, fairness,
responsibility and respect for self and others – that form the
basis of good character. A school committed to character education
explicitly names and publicly stands for these values; promulgates
them to all members of the school community; defines them in terms
of behaviors that can be observed in the life of the school;
models these values; studies and discusses them; uses them as the
basis of human relationships in the school; celebrates their
manifestations in the school and community; and upholds them by
making all school members accountable to standards of conduct
consistent with the core values.
In a school committed to developing character, these core
values are treated as a matter of obligation, as having a claim on
the conscience of the individual and community. Character
education asserts that the validity of these values, and our
obligation to uphold them, derive from the fact that such values
affirm our human dignity; they promote the development and welfare
of the individual person; they serve the common good; they meet
the classical tests of reversibility (Would you want to be treated
this way?) and universality (Would you want all persons to act
this way in a similar situation?); and they define our rights and
responsibilities in a democratic society. The school makes clear
that these basic human values transcend religious and cultural
differences and express our common humanity.
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- "Character" must be comprehensively
defined to include thinking, feeling and behavior.
In an effective character education program, character is
broadly conceived to encompass the cognitive, emotional, and
behavioral aspects of the moral life. Good character consists of
understanding, caring about, and acting upon core ethical values.
The task of character education therefore is to help students and
all other members of the learning community know "the
good," value it, and act upon it. As people grow in their
character, they will develop an increasingly refined understanding
of the core values, a deeper commitment to living according to
those values, and a stronger tendency to behave in accordance with
those values.
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- Effective character education requires an
intentional proactive and comprehensive approach that promotes
the core values in all phases of school life.
- The school must be a caring community.
The school itself must embody good character. It must progress
toward becoming a microcosm of the civil, caring, and just society
we seek to create as a nation. The school can do this by becoming
a moral community that helps students form caring attachments to
adults and to each other. These caring relationships will foster
both the desire to learn and the desire to be a good person. All
children and adolescents have a need to belong, and they are more
likely to internalize the values and expectations of groups that
meet this need. The daily life of classrooms, as well as all other
parts of the school environment (e.g. the corridors, cafeteria,
playground, and school bus), must be imbued with core values such
as concern and respect for others, responsibility, kindness, and
fairness.
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- To develop character students need
opportunities for moral action.
In the ethical as in the intellectual domain, students are
constructive learners; they learn best by doing. To develop good
character, they need many and varied opportunities to apply values
such as responsibility and fairness in everyday interactions and
discussions. By grappling with real-life challenges – how to
divide the labor in a cooperative learning group, how to reach
consensus in a class meeting, how to carry out a service learning
project, how to reduce fights on the play ground – students
develop practical understanding of the requirements of fairness,
cooperation, and respect. Through repeated moral skills and
behavioral habits that make up the action side of character.
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- Effective character education includes a
meaningful and challenging academic curriculum that respects all
learners and helps them succeed.
Character education and academic learning must not be conceived
as separate spheres; rather there must be a strong, mutually
supportive relationship. In a caring classroom and school where
students feel liked and respected by their teachers and fellow
students, students are more likely to work hard and achieve.
Reciprocally, when students are enabled to succeed at the work of
school, they are more likely to feel valued and cared about as
persons.
Because students come to school with diverse skills, interests
and needs, a curriculum that helps all students succeed will be
one whose content and pedagogy are sophisticated enough to engage
all learners. That means moving beyond a skill-and-drill, paper
and pencil curriculum to one that is inherently interesting and
meaningful for students. A character education school makes
effective use of active teaching and learning methods such as
cooperative learning, problem-solving approaches, experience-based
projects, and the like. One of the most authentic ways to respect
children is to respect the way they learn.
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- Character education should strive to develop
students’ intrinsic motivation.
As students develop good character, they develop a stronger
inner commitment to doing what their moral judgment tells them is
right. Schools, especially in their approach to discipline, should
strive to develop this intrinsic commitment to core values. They
should minimize reliance on extrinsic rewards and punishments that
distract students’ attention from the real reasons to behave
responsibly: the rights and needs of self and others. Responses to
rule breaking should give students opportunities for restitution
and foster the students’ understanding of the rules and
willingness to abide by then in the future.
Similarly, within the academic curriculum, intrinsic motivation
should be fostered in every way possible. This can be done by
helping students experience the challenge and interest of subject
matter, the desire to work collaboratively with other students,
and the fulfillment of making a positive difference in another
person’s life or in their school or community.
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- The school staff must become a learning and
moral community in which all share responsibility for character
education and attempt to adhere to the same core values that
guide the education of students.
Three things need attention here. First, all school staff –
teachers, administrators, counselors, coaches, secretaries,
cafeteria workers, playground aides, bus drivers – must be
involved in learning about, discussion and taking ownership of the
character education effort. All of these adults must model the
core values in their own behavior and take advantage of the other
opportunities they have to influence the character of the students
with whom they come in contact.
Second, the same values and norms that govern the life of
students must govern the collective life of the adult members of
the school community. If students are to be treated as
constructive learners, so must adults. They must have extended
staff development and many opportunities to observe and then try
out ways of integrating character education practices into their
work with students. If students are given opportunities to work
collaboratively and participate in decision-making that improves
classrooms and school, so must adults. If a school’s staff
members do not experience mutual respect, fairness and cooperation
in their adult relationships, they are less likely to be committed
to teaching those values to students.
Third, the school must find and protect time for staff
reflection on moral matters. School staff, through faculty
meetings and smaller support groups, should be regularly asking:
What positive, character building experiences is the school
already providing for its students? What negative moral
experiences (e.g., peer cruelty, student cheating, adult
disrespect of students, littering of the grounds) is the school
currently failing to address? And what important moral experiences
(e.g., cooperative learning, school and community service,
opportunities to learn about and interact with people from
different racial ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds) is the
school now omitting? What school practices are at odds with its
professed core values and desire to develop a caring school
community? Reflection of this nature is an indispensable condition
for developing the moral life of a school.
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- Character education requires moral leadership
from both staff and students
.
For character education to meet the criteria outlined thus far,
there must be leaders (a principal, another administrator, a lead
teachers) who champion the effort and, at least initially, a
character education committee (or several such support groups,
each focused on a particular aspect of the character effort) with
responsibility for long-range planning and program implementation.
Over time, the functions of this committee may be taken on by the
school’s regular governing bodies. Students should also be
brought into roles of moral leadership through student government,
peer conflict mediation programs, cross-age tutoring, and the
like.
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- The school must recruit parents and community
members as full partners in the character-building effort.
A school’s character education mission statement should state
explicitly what is true: Parents are the first and most important
moral educators of their children. Next, the school should take
pains at every www to communicate with parents about the
school’s goals and activities regarding character development
– and how families can help. To build trust between home and
school, parents should be represented on the character leadership
committee that does the planning, the school should actively reach
out to "disconnected" subgroups of parents, and all
parents need to be informed about – and have a chance to react
and consent to – the school’s proposed core values and how the
school proposes to try to teach them. Finally, schools and
families will enhance the effectiveness of their partnership if
they recruit the help of the wider community – businesses,
religious institutions, youth organizations, the government, and
the media – in promoting the core ethical values.
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- Evaluation of character education should
assess the character of the school, the school staff’s
functioning as character educators, and the extent to which
students manifest good character.
