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Character Education: What is it?

President Bush, in his recent address to Congress, proposed tripling the current spending on �Character Education.� Many people had never heard the term and wondered, �what is character education?� Why would �character education� merit a tripling of their current funds?

The Ethics Resource Center explains �the core of character education is now the understanding that whenever any academic subject or skill is being taught, ideas about truth, right and wrong are also being transmitted. These are concepts that provide the foundations for ethics in a community (what is good, right, or how we ought to behave), and thus schools are increasingly being seen as important teachers and reinforcers of ethical behavior.�

While this explanation is clear, a recent study (Jones, Ryan, and Bohlin, 2001) explains �there is little consensus about what character education is and how it should be taught. Schools of education emphasize very different approaches in teaching character education to future teachers, ranging from experiential education to religious education to moral reasoning.�

The realization that the language we use, the ideas we teach, and the stories we read all have values and ideas of truth is not new. However, the recognizing of those values and truths in schools K-12 is fairly new. Many times, teachers would simply assume that something was right or wrong and not discuss those ideas with students and would assume they saw the same things. Without that discussion, it left meanings of truth and right and wrong open to the interpretation of students who were still developing those very concepts.

While educators are recognizing those messages, and deciding to do something about clarifying them, the question becomes what type of �character� should be taught? Some would suggest that a religious form of character education should be the focus. However, the U.S. Supreme Court decision of Stone v. Graham (1980) made it clear that a separation of church and state does exist in the Constitution. Also, considering the vast number of religions in America, it may be more divisive to use religion as a foundation in public schools.

However, many of the foundations and institutes that discuss the idea of character education seem to be searching for more universal ethics than specific commandments to follow and teach students. One study (Jones, Ryan, and Bohlin, 2001) indicates that 90% of education leaders �agreed that core values can and should be taught in schools.�

Ethics USA focuses on 7 basic core values: positive mental attitude, respect, integrity, compassion, cooperation, perseverance, and initiative. Texas Education Commissioner Jim Nelson says their state program will focus on �trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring and citizenship.� Beedy and Gough posit key ethical values as �respect, responsibility, caring, compassion, honesty, cooperation, fair play and perseverance.� The Jefferson Center for Character Education has 8 core values: honesty, responsibility, courage, justice, respect, integrity, caring and politeness. And the Character Education Partnership calls �caring, honesty, fairness, responsibility, and respect for self and others, their �pivotally important core ethical values.�

While all have differences in their core values, they also seem to have common currents in their ethical systems. Respect, caring, honesty, and responsibility seem to be the core values that apply universally. The question becomes how? How do educators teach and use these core values?

Today�s educators that implement character education seem to focus on fostering an environment in their classrooms that employs these core values in their daily activities. They may not explicitly discuss them daily, but they try to motivate these types of behaviors that fit into the core values they choose to utilize. The Ethics Resource Center points to the example of role models, such as parents, teachers, athletes and others, as vital to ethical development. They provide examples that show how realistic the ethics system is to employ in daily life.

The Character Education Partnership explains, �to develop character, students need opportunities for moral action.� Students learn best when they can not only discuss ideas, but actively put those ideas into practical application. While some educators think that students should simply read something and know it, knowledge tends to be retained better when there is active learning, where actions and interactions help reinforce the knowledge. In this case, giving students the opportunities to reinforce the core values of character education helps to cement these values within their daily thoughts and actions.

Character education is an idea that may be needed to recreate our places of learning and society. It may be the replacement that our schools have been looking for over the last 35 years since prayer was taken out of schools. It may instill ideas and character that seems to have been lacking in many facets of society. However, the federal government should not be funding or deciding these things. Part of the positive aspect of seeing so many different, but similar forms of character education is the realization that it is a local movement that has been created. It should stay that way.

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