The Importance Of Character Education

This paper serves to exemplify how character education is an integral component in the elementary school social studies class and how it relates to the success of students in elementary school as stated in research. According to the U.S. Department of Education, character education is defined as, “… a learning process that enables students and adults in a school community to understand, care about and act on core ethical values such as respect, justice, civic virtue and citizenship, and responsibility for self and others. Upon such core values, we form the attitudes and actions that are the hallmark of safe, healthy and informed communities that serve as the foundation of our society” (U.S. Department of Education, 2005).The review of research literature has given valuable insight on how character education is defined, how it is used in the elementary classroom, and the benefits and challenges of character education programs. After examining various research articles, I found that there were significantly common themes that were found amongst some character education programs that will be explored further as well.

Character Education Defined

Character education has been defined in many ways and through the review of research literature; many of the definitions amongst them share mutual premises. In John Hoge’s research study about character and citizenship education and the social studies, he defined character education as, “any conscious or overt effort to influence the development of desirable individual qualities or traits” (Hoge, 2002). The schools that were included in a study conducted by Paul Dovre in 2007 were deemed to be National Schools of Character. According to his research, they “exemplified Character Education Pa...

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...the Committee for Children. It encompasses 30 lessons at each elementary grade level to help students develop empathy and learn anger management and conflict resolution skills” (Dovre, 2007). Sanchez identified a few programs that were effective character education programs such as D.A.R.E (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) Program, Child Development Project, and Character Counts (Sanchez, 2005). Rachel’s Challenge is also a character education program that was formed after a young lady named Rachel Scott was killed during the horrific shooting at Columbine High School. She was known for her acts of benevolence and compassion for others. The program centers on her positive attributes and teaches elementary students how to harness and exemplify the upstanding and responsible qualities in society that she personified in their school and community (Hollingshead, 2009).