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Academic paper on teaching character education
Implications of the study of moral development
Solutions to Ethical Problems In Schools
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Recommended: Academic paper on teaching character education
The inadequacy of character education in society is evidenced in the behavior of youth today. This is obvious in the speech and actions of elementary age students as well as in the lack of respect and violence of teenagers. Character is a natural process of adaptation that is learned through education, experience and personal choices. Researchers have found that character is definitely not hereditary and has nothing to do with genetics, but rather with the upbringing and environment in which the child is raised. Moral learning occurs during the early formative years of life. During this time, most children are involved primarily with a family unit and with friends. On weekdays during the school year, nearly half of their waking hours are spent with teachers and peers in the educational system. The school environment therefore has a profound influence on shaping the way a child habitually behaves. To take it a step further, Gerald Grant claims that “much of what we have become as a nation is shaped in the schoolyard and the classroom” (195). This indicates far reaching effects of the character education of society’s youth.
According to Ryan and Bolin, “Socrates long ago stated that the mission of education is to help people become both smart and good. In recent decades the second part of that definition has suffered in American schools and colleges” (19). There are moral precepts accepted by society as a whole and adults should have the courage to teach them. Morals refer to generally accepted customs of conduct and right living in a society, and to the individual’s practice in relation to these.
Teddy Roosevelt reportedly said, “To educate a person in the mind but not the morals is to educate a menace to society” (Josephson,...
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...ness and to develop each aspect of the program as change becomes necessary. This need for character education is a challenging task for public education that is well worth the effort for the sake of our youth and for the future of our society.
Works Cited
Gauld, Laura and Malcolm. The Biggest Job We’ll Ever Have. New York: Scribner, 2002.
Grant, Gerald. The World We Created at Hamilton High. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988.
Josephson, Michael. “Character Education Is Back in Our Public Schools,” The State Education Standard, Autumn 2002: 40-45.
Kilpatrick, William. Why Johnny Can’t Tell Right from Wrong. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992.
Lickona, Thomas. Educating for Character. New York: Bantam Books, 1991.
Ryan, Kevin and Karen E. Bohlin. Building Character in Schools. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1999.
Milgram, Stanley. “The Perils of Obedience.” Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum. Eds. Laurence Behrens and Leonard J. Rosen. Boston: Longman, 2011. 692-704.
takes on this responsibility to educate the young ones has more then a lesson to teach, but
McNeel, S. (1994). College teaching and student moral development. In J. Rest, & D. Narvaez (Eds.), Moral development in the professions: Psychology and applied ethics (pp. 27-49). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
“Your beliefs don’t make you a better person, your behavior does.” This quote comes from a picture found on flickr and makes me think about my younger days as I learned how to be a leader in scouting and it’s similarities to the poem, “A Little Scout Follows Me.” The moral of the poem is that there are always younger eyes watching and learning from those they look up to, even those that don’t realize they are being watched. When I think about the value of education, I first begin to think about the connection it brings between that and it’s community.
There is three things necessary to make a convincing or developing character; “first It must be consistent with the individual’s characterization as dramatized in the story, second It must be sufficiently motivated by the circumstances in which the character is placed, and finally the story must offer sufficient time for the change to take place to be believable.” [page 172]
Lickona, T. (1991). Educating for character: How our schools can teach respect and responsibility. New York, NY: Bantam Books.
By the 1950’s, Americans began to grow concerned about the morality of their children, especially since “the common school inculcates all Christian morals; it founds its morals on the basis of religion; it welcomes the religion of the Bible.”3 School boards across the region began to investigate ways to teach moral...
Finally, I believe a character must be responsible. Responsibility comes with experience, and is something a person has, or they do not have. I am responsible by maintaining a grade point average greater than three point eight five while participating actively in numerous extra curricular activities and working more than a twenty-five hour workweek. With great power, comes responsibility in which I will always have.
The issue of whether ethics can be taught or not has been an argument that has been questioned by many individuals for thousands of years. The philosopher, Socrates himself debated this question. His view on the issue was simply that ethics is a trait in ourselves in knowing what a person ought to do in different situations in life. Socrates’ point of view on the matter of ethics is important because it is a common belief amidst people today that ethics is a trait in ourselves that tells us from right and wrong and what to do in certain situations. In a study done by psychologist James Rest in the field of moral development, he found that a lot of the ideas that were originally raised by Socrates were accurate with the use of evidence based on his research. Rest concluded that dramatic changes usually take place that deal with problem-solving strategies in young adulthood for the average human being. That is important because it shows that people in young adulthood begin to gain a sense of morals, or a sense of what is right and wrong. It also concludes that a moral compass cannot be
The most successful way to instill righteous and moral behavior and thoughts is by demonstrating our respectable interactions and honest problem solving approaches during difficult times of our lives. “As adults we should dare to be adults that we want our children to be”. They learn by watching and are quick to mimic our behavior with their peers outside of home. The author writes that “we should strive to raise children who: engage with the world from a place of worthiness, embrace their vulnerabilities and imperfections, feel a deep sense of love and compassion for themselves and others, value hard work, perseverance, and respect, and also move through our rapidly changing world with courage and a resilient spirit” (214, 218-219). All of these elements will help to transform the way we live, love, and
Character education programs are designed to help with many issues such as aggressive behavior, life skills, conflict and violence, safety, diversity tolerance and most of all, they exist in order to help build one’s character. Effective character education programs need to include many main beliefs.
(2012). Vygotsky from ZPD to ZCD in moral education: reshaping Western theory and practices in local context. Journal Of Moral Education, 41(2), 225-243. doi:10
Ryan, Kevin, and Karen E. Bohlin. Building Character InSchools:Practical Ways to Bring Moral Instruction to Life. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1999. 25-40. Print.
It was then when the school systems began to develop teachers by having them acquainted with and deliberately teaching good character and moral values, as well as modeling them, within and outside of their classroom with the expectation that their students would carry those lessons out into society. Character education has and continues to impact the world of education and helps define the social morays of the local community. While the lines of where parenting ends and schools should pick up are sometimes blurry, I believe society would be different today if education had not begun to incorporate character into its lessons to offer a supplement for when parents and society may have fallen short. Not every student has the benefit of strong guidance within their home life or positive role models. Beachum, McCray, Obiaker, and Yawn (2013) conducted a study which determined that when teachers get certified on how to teach lessons with character education concepts intertwined, their students have been shown to have a positive influence
Goodlad, J. I., Sirotnik, K. A., & Soder, R. (1990). The moral dimensions of teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass