Post by Uplifting Education on Nov 30, 2011 23:02:33 GMT -8
Quotes from this website
Put simply, character education is a conscious effort to develop virtues in people. Most educators agree that developing any sort of knowledge involves cognitive, affective, and behavioral outcomes. This means that people come to know something in their minds, accept or agree with it in their hearts, and take appropriate actions. Character education aims to produce people who are good in their “heads, hearts, and hands.” Such people know what is good, they care about what is good, and they do what is good.
Definitions
•Education of the Head, Heart, and Hand
•Know the Good, Care about the Good, Do the Good
•The deliberate effort to help people understand, care about, and act upon core ethical values. (Dr. Thomas Lickona, author, Educating for Character)
Social Problems Have Moral Components
Many people, both within and outside the field of education, have come to see that problems like family breakdown, illicit sexual activity among youth leading to unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases and emotional trauma, drug and alcohol abuse, the rise in violent crime, and other social ills, have a moral component that it is well to address. Schools are a natural place to build and reinforce the virtues that would help to ameliorate these problems. What is more, most school administrators and parents agree that schools need to participate in the moral instruction of the young.
Moral Behavior Is a Traditional Aim of Education
Traditionally, character education was an accepted part of a school’s mission. Inculcating moral behavior has been accepted historically as an aim of education—perhaps the primary aim. Some of the most pre-eminent universities in the United States (Harvard University is one example) were founded in order to train clergy. Internationally, many religious organizations founded schools in order to produce educated and virtuous citizenries.
As far back as Plato, educators were assumed to embrace character education as part of their mission, indeed, as their foremost mission. In Plato’s Republic, he stated: “They [the] send him to teachers and tell them to attend to his conduct far more than to his reading and writing. And the teachers do so…they put into his hands the works of great poets, and make him read and learn them by heart, sitting on his bench at school. These are full of instruction and of tales and praises of famous men of old, and the aim is that the boy may admire and imitate and be eager to become like them.”
Trends of Moral Relativism
For many reasons, however, character education went out of fashion in the twentieth century. This was due to a number of factors. One of these factors was the application of scientific principles to the moral realm. Positivistic scientific thinking had it that only things that could be scientifically proven through empirical evidence—observation and experimentation—were valid. Therefore, things to do with the human mind, heart and spirit—things like morality, right and wrong—fell outside the purview of education, for they fell outside the realm of observable and measurable phenomena.
Further, with the scientific theory of relativity gaining acceptance, some educators began to see morality as relative. It was thought that people grew up believing what their culture taught them about right and wrong. What was right in one culture might be wrong in another, and no one had a right to judge. There was no objective standard of right and wrong.
This kind of thinking was furthered by a growing sense of personalism—each person, not only each culture, had his or her own beliefs and values and should not be judged for living according to his or her individual choices. It all depended upon a person’s “values”. The only character instruction appropriate in schools, then, was to help students clarify their values—not to instruct them in what values they should have.
Education Has Become Utilitarian
Further, education in general became more utilitarian and mechanistic. The emphasis came to be on preparing young people for their careers. Character, it was thought, should be taken care of by parents and religious leaders, not schools. Schools were there to prepare people to take their places in the workforce.
Yet social problems multiplied in the second half of the twentieth century, and many people saw this as being due to a lack of moral education. Due to this social decline, in the 1990s, a character education movement arose in the United States.
The Character Education Movement
Character education advocates argued that an education that merely taught students technical skills and knowledge had potentially dangerous social consequences. After all, technology could be used for evil purposes, as Hitler’s gas chambers and ovens—marvels of efficiency—proved. Society did not need people with technical and intellectual proficiency who would use their gifts in selfish or uncaring ways. Education needed to include such things as altruism, caring, compassion, honesty, and respect. In short, education had to address issues of character.
The character education movement’s ideas, goals, and practices were articulated in books, institutes, and websites dedicated to educating and advocating for character. Curricula were created, and character education became mandatory in many states. Two recent U.S. presidents have mentioned character education as a specific goal of education. Their stances echoed the words of President Theodore Roosevelt, early in the twentieth century, who said, “To educate a man in mind and not morals is to educate a menace to society.”
This point is particularly well taken in the modern technological age. As our technological and material powers grow, we need moral men and women to wield them, or else the results could be catastrophic.
Advocates of character education further argued that morality is not a relative thing after all; that countless cultures in various times and places have had remarkable consensus about good character. Virtues like honesty, kindness, respect, and responsibility are admired everywhere and always have been—beyond time and place.
The advocates of character education changed the conversation from “values” to “virtues.” Values, indeed, were relative for they were just what one person or culture valued. Virtues, or character strengths, were universally and unchangingly admired.
What was more, character education advocates argued, parents want schools to help teach their children right from wrong. People realized that when the home, school, and community cooperate in teaching morality to the young, it is a powerful combination for good in society.
Concern for the character of youth is worldwide. Parents and educators everywhere are profoundly concerned about the moral development of the youth in their countries. To help parents, schools, and other educators respond to this concern, UPF has started a character education initiative.
Key Points
•Character education is teaching people to think the good, feel the good, and do the good.
•It is a traditionally accepted part of education.
•Character education got lost due to scientific positivism, relativism, and mechanistic educational thinking.
•The 1990s saw a character education movement born in the United States. This movement, a revival of classical ideas, spread quickly.
Put simply, character education is a conscious effort to develop virtues in people. Most educators agree that developing any sort of knowledge involves cognitive, affective, and behavioral outcomes. This means that people come to know something in their minds, accept or agree with it in their hearts, and take appropriate actions. Character education aims to produce people who are good in their “heads, hearts, and hands.” Such people know what is good, they care about what is good, and they do what is good.
Definitions
•Education of the Head, Heart, and Hand
•Know the Good, Care about the Good, Do the Good
•The deliberate effort to help people understand, care about, and act upon core ethical values. (Dr. Thomas Lickona, author, Educating for Character)
Social Problems Have Moral Components
Many people, both within and outside the field of education, have come to see that problems like family breakdown, illicit sexual activity among youth leading to unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases and emotional trauma, drug and alcohol abuse, the rise in violent crime, and other social ills, have a moral component that it is well to address. Schools are a natural place to build and reinforce the virtues that would help to ameliorate these problems. What is more, most school administrators and parents agree that schools need to participate in the moral instruction of the young.
Moral Behavior Is a Traditional Aim of Education
Traditionally, character education was an accepted part of a school’s mission. Inculcating moral behavior has been accepted historically as an aim of education—perhaps the primary aim. Some of the most pre-eminent universities in the United States (Harvard University is one example) were founded in order to train clergy. Internationally, many religious organizations founded schools in order to produce educated and virtuous citizenries.
As far back as Plato, educators were assumed to embrace character education as part of their mission, indeed, as their foremost mission. In Plato’s Republic, he stated: “They [the] send him to teachers and tell them to attend to his conduct far more than to his reading and writing. And the teachers do so…they put into his hands the works of great poets, and make him read and learn them by heart, sitting on his bench at school. These are full of instruction and of tales and praises of famous men of old, and the aim is that the boy may admire and imitate and be eager to become like them.”
Trends of Moral Relativism
For many reasons, however, character education went out of fashion in the twentieth century. This was due to a number of factors. One of these factors was the application of scientific principles to the moral realm. Positivistic scientific thinking had it that only things that could be scientifically proven through empirical evidence—observation and experimentation—were valid. Therefore, things to do with the human mind, heart and spirit—things like morality, right and wrong—fell outside the purview of education, for they fell outside the realm of observable and measurable phenomena.
Further, with the scientific theory of relativity gaining acceptance, some educators began to see morality as relative. It was thought that people grew up believing what their culture taught them about right and wrong. What was right in one culture might be wrong in another, and no one had a right to judge. There was no objective standard of right and wrong.
This kind of thinking was furthered by a growing sense of personalism—each person, not only each culture, had his or her own beliefs and values and should not be judged for living according to his or her individual choices. It all depended upon a person’s “values”. The only character instruction appropriate in schools, then, was to help students clarify their values—not to instruct them in what values they should have.
Education Has Become Utilitarian
Further, education in general became more utilitarian and mechanistic. The emphasis came to be on preparing young people for their careers. Character, it was thought, should be taken care of by parents and religious leaders, not schools. Schools were there to prepare people to take their places in the workforce.
Yet social problems multiplied in the second half of the twentieth century, and many people saw this as being due to a lack of moral education. Due to this social decline, in the 1990s, a character education movement arose in the United States.
The Character Education Movement
Character education advocates argued that an education that merely taught students technical skills and knowledge had potentially dangerous social consequences. After all, technology could be used for evil purposes, as Hitler’s gas chambers and ovens—marvels of efficiency—proved. Society did not need people with technical and intellectual proficiency who would use their gifts in selfish or uncaring ways. Education needed to include such things as altruism, caring, compassion, honesty, and respect. In short, education had to address issues of character.
The character education movement’s ideas, goals, and practices were articulated in books, institutes, and websites dedicated to educating and advocating for character. Curricula were created, and character education became mandatory in many states. Two recent U.S. presidents have mentioned character education as a specific goal of education. Their stances echoed the words of President Theodore Roosevelt, early in the twentieth century, who said, “To educate a man in mind and not morals is to educate a menace to society.”
This point is particularly well taken in the modern technological age. As our technological and material powers grow, we need moral men and women to wield them, or else the results could be catastrophic.
Advocates of character education further argued that morality is not a relative thing after all; that countless cultures in various times and places have had remarkable consensus about good character. Virtues like honesty, kindness, respect, and responsibility are admired everywhere and always have been—beyond time and place.
The advocates of character education changed the conversation from “values” to “virtues.” Values, indeed, were relative for they were just what one person or culture valued. Virtues, or character strengths, were universally and unchangingly admired.
What was more, character education advocates argued, parents want schools to help teach their children right from wrong. People realized that when the home, school, and community cooperate in teaching morality to the young, it is a powerful combination for good in society.
Concern for the character of youth is worldwide. Parents and educators everywhere are profoundly concerned about the moral development of the youth in their countries. To help parents, schools, and other educators respond to this concern, UPF has started a character education initiative.
Key Points
•Character education is teaching people to think the good, feel the good, and do the good.
•It is a traditionally accepted part of education.
•Character education got lost due to scientific positivism, relativism, and mechanistic educational thinking.
•The 1990s saw a character education movement born in the United States. This movement, a revival of classical ideas, spread quickly.