Character Education

Character Education Yuliya Tsypenyuk ELE 301 Dr. Pan

What is Character Education? • What is character? • The summation of a person’s habits, attitudes and attributes • What is character education? • An educational movement that supports the social, emotional and ethical development of students. It’s goal is to help students develop important core, ethical and performance values such as caring, honesty, diligence, fairness, fortitude, responsibility, and respect for self and others. • Provides long-term solutions to moral, ethical, and academic issues that are of growing concern in our society and our schools. • Teaches students how to be their best selves and how to do their best work while also facilitating positive school culture and climate transformation.

Character Education is not new • Historically, character education has been involved in education in some form • Plato and Aristotle believed the role of education was to train good and virtuous citizens • John Locke believed that learning was secondary to virtue • Books in schools have typically aimed to teach a moral lesson. • Character education began to die down in the early 20th century because of books reliance on religion and society’s views of morality

Character Education History • Character education regained prominence in the 1960’s which focused on development in 6 areas of human interaction • Around that time, Lawrence Kohlberg (famous psychologist) established a program which focus on the children developing moral reasoning rather than having values imposed by the teacher

Character Education History • What we know as character education began in the 1990’s. • EducatingforCharacter, reintroduced the idea that there is a set of common beliefs and values upon which all people can agree. • A year later, a group of educators, ethicists, and scholars met in Aspen, Colo., for a gathering that resulted in the Aspen Declaration and the beginning of the Character Counts Coalition. • The federal government has embraced the idea of offering character education in public schools and has made grants available to states interested in piloting new character education programs in their schools. • Most character education programs are based on the traits developed from the civic virtues found in the U.S. Constitution and the United Nations charter—as well as common civil and moral values such as honesty, courage, and respect for others.

Types of Values Taught • Six Pillars of Character • Trustworthiness • Respect • Responsibility • Fairness • Caring • Citizenship • T.R.R.F.C.C. Terrific! -- From CharacterCounts

Types of Values Taught • Responsibility • Perseverance • Caring • Self-discipline • Citizenship • Honesty • Courage • Fairness • Respect • Integrity • Patriotism -- From Character Education Network

11 Principles of Character Education • Character education promotes core ethical values as the basis of good character. • "Character" must be comprehensively defined to include thinking, feeling, and behavior. • Effective character education requires and intentional, proactive, and comprehensive approach that promotes the core values in all phases of school life. • The school must be a caring community. • To develop character, students need opportunities for moral action. • Effective character education includes a meaningful and challenging academic curriculum that respects all learners and helps them succeed.

11 Principles of Character Education • Character education should strive to develop students' intrinsic motivation. • 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. • Character education requires moral leadership from both staff and students. • The school must recruit parents and community members as full partners in the character-building effort. • 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.

When should character education be implemented? • Character Education can be initiated at any grade level • Important to set a strong foundation during earlier grades • Also important to reinforce that foundation during the later grades • It should not become a "character education class" that is conducted periodically • It should be incorporated throughout the entire school curriculum and culture.

Examples of Programs • R.A.K (Random Acts of Kindness) Brick Wall • Select a week when all the classes compete over who can do the most random kind acts. Every day the students report any acts they did the prior day, the teacher takes a tally, and for every 5, the class earns a “brick” (red construction paper) on the “Kindness Wall” on display in the school • Read Aloud • Read a story involving a moral dilemma or development of a character trait. In addition to typical read aloud lesson, discuss the character trait • Role Play • Have students role play or perform skits on issues such as bullying or conflicts and demonstrate proper ways to resolve these problems • “Character” Word of the Week • Choose one word or trait a week to discuss in classrooms

Why Character should be taught • Children spend about 900 hours per year in school, so schools must be proactive in helping develop supportive environments where students develop into healthy, caring, hard-working men and women. • In order to create the caring and respectful schools and communities we all want, we must be intentional and comprehensive in educating for character. • "To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society." -- Theodore Roosevelt • Some studies found that schools which implemented character education had increased test scores, fewer suspensions, and less absenteeism. Others found that student behavior and attitudes improved, as well as the staff’s.

Arguments Against Character Education • Debate over which values should and should not be taught • Many argue that it is the parent’s role to decide which values should be instilled in the children, not the teacher or school • Some argue that schools are intended to educate, not preach values • Curriculums are full enough as is. • Often, teachers do not exhibit the traits they are encouraging students to adopt • Some studies claim to not have found any difference between schools that implemented character education and those that did not.

More Character Education Information • http://charactercounts.org • The home page of one of the biggest Character Education Programs • http://www.character.org/ • Nation Advocate and leader for character education movement Free Resources for Teachers • http://www.mrsjonesroom.com/themes/charactered.html • http://www.advancepublishing.com/activity_pages/activitypages.htm

Sources • http://www.edweek.org/ew/issues/character-education/ • http://charactered.ocde.us/Eleven_Principles_of_Effective_Character_Education.htm • http://www.advancepublishing.com/activity_pages/activitypages.htm • http://otal.umd.edu/~paulette/ISTC201_Spring2001/Moral_Education/chared.html • http://charactercounts.org/overview/faq.html • http://www.character.org/frequentlyaskedquestionsaboutcharactereducation • http://charactered.net/main/traits.asp

Character Education