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DEFINING AND UNDERSTANDING CHARACTER EDUCATION

What is character education? Character education is a national movement creating schools that foster ethical, responsible and caring young people by modeling and teaching good character through emphasis on universal values that we all share. It is the intentional, proactive effort by schools, districts and states to instill in their students important core ethical values such as caring, honesty, fairness, responsibility and respect for self and others. Character education is not a “quick fix.” It provides long-term solutions that address moral, ethical and academic issues of growing concern to our society and key to the safety of our schools.

• Character education not only cultivates minds, it nurtures hearts.

• Character education gets to the heart of the matter – literally. Why do we need character education? As Dr. Thomas Lickona, author of Educating for Character, stated, “Moral education is not a new idea. It is, in fact, as old as education itself. Down through history, in countries all over the world, education has had two great goals: to help young people become smart and to help them become good.” Good character is not formed automatically; it is developed over time through a sustained process of teaching, example, learning and practice. It is developed through character education. The intentional teaching of good character is particularly important in today’s society since our youth face many opportunities and dangers unknown to earlier generations. They are bombarded with many more negative influences through the media and other external sources preval‎ent in today’s culture. At the same time, there are many more day-to-day pressures impinging on the time that parents and children have together. Studies show that children spend only 38.5 minutes a week (33.4 hours a year) in meaningful conversation with their parents, while they spend 1,500 hours watching television. (American Family Research Council, 1990 and Harper’s, November 1999.) Since children spend about 900 hours a year in school, it is essential that Character Education 13 151 Finding Common Ground: A Guide to Religious Liberty in Public Schools schools resume a proactive role in assisting families and communities by developing caring, respectful environments where students learn core, ethical values. In order to create our schools as the caring and respectful communities we know they can be, we must look deeper. We must be intentional, proactive and comprehensive in our work to encourage the development of good character in young people. How does character education work? To be effective, character education must include the entire school community and must be infused throughout the entire school curriculum and culture. Character education promotes core values in all phases of school life and includes proactive strategies and practices that help children not only understand core ethical values, but to care about and act upon them. Based on research by the nation’s leading character education experts, CEP’s Eleven Principles of Effective Character Education™, provide guidelines for the elements needed for effective, comprehensive character education.

1. Promotes core ethical values.

2. Teaches students to understand, care about, and act upon these core ethical values.

3. Encompasses all aspects of the school culture.

4. Fosters a caring school community.

5. Offers opportunities for moral action.

6. Supports academic achievement.

7. Develops intrinsic motivation.

8. Includes whole-staff involvement.

9. Requires positive leadership of staff and students.

10. Involves parents and community members.

11. Assesses results and strives to improve.

Schools: According to Lickona, when a comprehensive approach to character education is used, a positive moral culture is created in the school—a total school environment that supports the values taught in the classroom. This is accomplished through the leadership of the principal, schoolwide discipline, a sense of community, democratic student government, a moral community among adults and opportunities to address moral concerns. Schools recruit parents and the community as partners and foster caring beyond the classroom by using inspiring role models and opportunities for community service to help students learn to care by giving care. 13 Character Education 152 Character Education Teachers: Teachers act as caregivers, models and mentors, treating students with love and respect, setting a good example, supporting pro-social behavior and correcting hurtful actions. The teacher creates a moral community, helping students respect and care about each other and feel valued within the group, and a democratic classroom environment, where students are involved in decision-making. Teachers practice moral discipline, using the creation and application of rules as opportunities to foster moral reasoning, self-control and a respect for others, and teaching values through the curriculum by using academic subjects as vehicles for examining ethical values. They use cooperative learning to teach children to work together, and they help develop their students’ academic responsibility and regard for the value of learning and work. They encourage moral reflection through reading, writing, discussion, decision-making exercises and debate, and they teach conflict resolution to help students learn to resolve conflicts in fair, non-violent ways. What is the goal of character education? To develop students socially, ethically and academically by infusing character development into every aspect of the school culture and curriculum. To help students develop good character, which includes knowing, caring about and acting upon core ethical values such as respect, responsibility, honesty, fairness and compassion. What is a school of character like? There is no one particular look or formula, but schools of character have one thing in common: a school-wide commitment to nurture the “whole child.” They develop students socially, ethically and academically by infusing character development into every part of their curriculum and culture. Specifically, a school committed to character education explicitly names and publicly stands for specific core values and promulgates them to all members of the school community. They define the values in terms of behaviors that can be observed in the life of the school, and they model, study, discuss and use them as the basis for all human relations in the school. They uphold the values by making all school members accountable to consistent standards of conduct, and they celebrate their manifestation in the school and community. Character education works in nearly every school environment, from small to large and from urban to suburban to rural. It works in both public and private schools, and with unique school populations and structures, such as charter, magnet, faith-based, and at-risk. The key to success is that character educators are able to find what works in their particular school, district or community. How does a school implement character education? Formalized character education begins when members of a school, along with the broad involvement of community members, come together to determine the core ethical values that they share and that form the basis for good education in their particular school. These values then become the foundation for all that the school does—curriculum, teaching strategies, school culture, extracurricular activities, etc. Character education is thereby infused into the broader community. Character Education 13 153 Finding Common Ground: A Guide to Religious Liberty in Public Schools Is character education as important as academics? Absolutely. The social, ethical and emotional development of young people is just as important as their academic development. As Theodore Roosevelt stated: “To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.” After all, we know that good workers, citizens, parents and neighbors all have their roots in good character. Therefore, it is critical to create schools that simultaneously foster character development and promote learning. In fact, character education promotes academic excellence because it lays a foundation for all learning that takes place in school. While research is in the early stages, it is clear that character education builds classrooms where students are ready to learn and where teachers are freer to teach. Isn’t character education just another “add-on” that contributes to teachers’ workloads? Character education is not an “add-on” but is instead a different way of teaching; it is a comprehensive approach that promotes core values in all phases of school life and permeates the entire school culture. It is not an imposition on already overburdened schools; rather, it helps educators fulfill their fundamental responsibility to prepare young children for the future by laying a foundation for learning through the creation of caring, respectful school environments. Teachers are reporting that their jobs become easier with the implementation of character education because there are fewer discipline and behavioral problems to detract from teaching time. How much time each day/week is needed for character education? Character education should take place throughout the entire school day as administrators, teachers and other staff are presented with opportunities to model and teach positive character traits. Character education should not be relegated to a “character education class” that is conducted periodically but should be infused throughout the structures and processes of the entire school curriculum and culture. Can character education work at all grade levels? Yes. Varying age-appropriate strategies and practices are being successfully applied to all grade levels, from teaching social and emotional skills in the earliest grades, to service learning and prejudice reduction in secondary schools. It is important to set a strong foundation during the earlier grades and to reinforce and build upon that foundation during the later grades. However, character education can be initiated at any grade level. 13 Character Education 154 Character Education Isn’t character education just a new fad or buzzword? No. Character education has always been an essential part of our schools’ mission. In fact, since the founding of our nation’s public schools, it was always intended that character education be an integral part of schooling along with academics. Today’s character education movement is a re-emergence of that important mission. Why is character education re-emerging now? Although character education has always been of vital importance, schools strayed from proactive efforts to incorporate character development into their teaching in past decades. Ironically, this neglect came at a time when the need became greater due to increased challenges in raising ethical children. A number of factors, such as a weakening in guidance by some families and communities, brought on widespread reflection and introspection toward the end of the 20th century. The tragedy at Columbine and fatal shootings at a number of other schools punctuated these concerns across the country. Now, character education is becoming a priority in our nation’s education reform as we are increasingly realizing that character development must be an intentional part of education rather than just a process that happens naturally. Is religion a part of character education? Parents are the primary and most important moral educators of their children. Thus public schools should develop character education programs in close partnership with parents and the community. Character education focuses on the core civic virtues and moral values that are widely held in our society across our religious and other differences. Under the First Amendment, public-school teachers may neither inculcate nor denigrate religion. The moral values and civic virtues agreed to in the community may be taught in public schools if done so without religious indoctrination. At the same time, core values should not be taught in such a way as to suggest that religious authority is unnecessary or unimportant. Sound character education programs affirm the value of religious and philosophical commitments. Faith formation is the province of families and religious communities. But public schools may teach about religion (as distinguished from religious indoctrination) as part of complete education. For example, the curriculum may include teaching about the role of religion in history and contemporary society, alerting students to the fact that moral convictions are often grounded in religious traditions. Character Education 13 155 Finding Common Ground: A Guide to Religious Liberty in Public Schools PARTICIPATION IN CHARACTER EDUCATION Shouldn’t parents be the primary character educators? Developing good character is first and foremost a parental responsibility, but the task must also be shared with schools and the broader community. As today’s society provides more and tougher challenges to raising ethical, responsible children, increasingly parents and communities are looking to schools for assistance. And sadly, school may be the only place where some children are taught virtuous behavior because they live in homes where their families are not serving as positive role models and are not providing adequate character development. Who decides what character education traits are emphasized? It is very important that each school community reach consensus on what values should be taught in a school in order to create the sense of ownership that is needed to obtain “buy-in” for the program. To be effective, schoolbased character education programs need broad support from all stakeholders in the community— educators, parents, community leaders, youth service groups, businesses and faith and charitable groups. Early in the planning process, schools should collaborate with parents and their communities to craft a shared vision and objectives. Collectively, they should identify the core values to be taught in their school as well as the particular approaches to teaching them. 13 Character Education 156 Character Education Effective character education schools across the country have shown that, despite deep differences, schools and communities can join together around a commitment to our common ethical inheritance. We know that there are some things that we all value for ourselves and for our children. We want our children to be honest. We want them to respect those different from themselves. We want them to make responsible decisions in their lives. We want them to care about their families, communities and themselves. These things do not happen on their own. It takes all of us, with the support of our schools, to get us there. Who teaches character education in a school? Inherently, each and every adult in a school is a character educator by virtue of exposure to students. Regardless of whether a school has formalized character education, all adults serve as role models. Students constantly watch as all adults in the school – teachers, administrators, counselors, coaches, secretaries, cafeteria aides, bus drivers – serve as models for character, whether good or bad. Beyond modeling, no matter what the academic subject or extracurricular activity, educators are afforded the opportunity to develop good character in their students on a daily basis by intentionally selecting character-based lessons and activities and by the way they educate their students. Are schools qualified to teach character education? Many teachers across the country are being trained in character education through staff development and in-services. Meanwhile, it appears that the nation’s schools of education are doing very little to prepare future teachers to be character educators, according to a 1999 study conducted by CEP and the Center for the Advancement of Ethics and Character at Boston University. The study found that, while character education is very strongly supported by the deans of education at the colleges and universities that are training new teachers, very few of the schools are addressing character education during teacher preparation. In order to implement effective initiatives, schools require access to resources and guidance in establishing, maintaining and assessing their programs. Character E