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 and performance values such as caring, honesty, diligence, fairness, fortitude, 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 that are of growing concern about our society and the safety of our schools. Character education teaches students how to be their best selves and how to do their best work.
- 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. And 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 the average child spends only 38.5 minutes a week (33.4 hours a year) in meaningful conversation with his or her 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 schools resume a proactive role in assisting families and communities by developing caring, respectful environments where students learn core, ethical and performance values. In order to create the caring and respectful schools and communities we all want, 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 and performance 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:
- Promotes core ethical and performance values
- Teaches students to understand, care about, and act upon these core ethical and performance values.
- Encompasses all aspects of the school culture
- Fosters a caring school community
- Provides opportunities for moral action
- Supports academic achievement
- Develops intrinsic motivation
- Includes whole-staff involvement
- Requires positive leadership of staff and students
- Involves parents and community members
- Assesses results and strives to improve
Schools: According to Tom Lickona, when a comprehensive approach to character education is used, schools create a positive moral culture in the school, developing an environment that supports the values taught in the classroom. This is accomplished through the leadership of the principal, school-wide discipline, a sense of community, democratic student government, a moral community among adults, and opportunities to address moral concerns. They 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.
Teachers: Teachers act as caregivers, role models and mentors, treating students with love and respect; setting a good example and 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. They practice moral discipline - creating and applying rules as opportunities to foster moral reasoning - self-control, and a respect for others, and teach values through the curriculum by using academic subjects as a vehicle 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, emotionally, 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, perseverance, honesty, fortitude, 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 nurturing the "whole" child. They develop students socially, emotionally, 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 attitudes and behaviors that can be observed in the life of the school; they model, study, and discuss them; 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 with public and private schools, and with unique school populations and structures, such as charter, magnet, faith-based, and at-risk. The key for success is finding what works in a particular school, district, or community; being accountable to agreed-upon core ethical and performance values; and assessing progress by way of ongoing evaluation.
How does a school implement character education?
Comprehensive, effective character education begins when members of a school, along with the local community, come together to determine the core 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, and extra-curricular activities. Character education is then infused into the broader community.
Is character education as important as academics?
Absolutely. The social, emotional and moral development of young people is just as important as their academic development. It is, in fact, the precursor to academic achievement. 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 young, it is clear that character education builds classrooms where students are ready to learn and where teachers are ready 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: preparing young children for their future by creating caring, respectful school environments. Teachers report that their jobs become easier with the implementation of character education because there are less discipline and behavioral problems that 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 ethical and performance values. 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, class meetings, and cooperative learning in secondary schools. It is important to set a strong foundation during the earlier grades and to reinforce that foundation during the later grades.Character education, however, can be initiated at any grade level.
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, character education was always intended to 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 other fatal shootings at a number of 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 and performance values that are widely held in our society across religious and other differences. Under the First Amendment, public school teachers may neither inculcate nor denigrate religion. The values 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.
Participation in Character Education
Public Support for Character Education
