Lecture
4
Character Education
Introduction:
Character education is a direct effort on the part of teachers
and/or schools to develop specific character traits in students.
It is growing as a movement in the United States of America. It
often takes the form of attempts to inculcate various virtues into
students (Lickona, 1991). This lesson will focus on general issues
involved in character education. Specifically, the question of
what constitutes good character and which values should be taught
will be addressed.
What constitutes “good character?”
Many people applaud the recent ethical trend over the last
two decades of a deepening concern over character. It appears as
if the link between private character and public life is being
rediscovered. It is becoming more and more apparent that our societal
moral problems reflect our own personal character flaws. What then
is good character? Aristotle defined good character as the life
of right conduct. He further divided character traits into two
classes of virtues—self-oriented virtues, and other-oriented
virtues. Self-oriented virtues are those focusing on the individual,
for example, temperance and self control. Other-oriented virtues
are those focusing outward toward one’s social context, for
example, compassion and generosity. Novak, a modern philosopher,
defines character as mix of virtues identified by various cultural
elements such as religion, literature, sages, and persons of common
sense. He goes on to point out that no one has all virtues and
everyone has some weaknesses.
For purposes of character education, Lickona (1991) defines character
as operative values, that is, values in action. Character is developed
as values are molded into virtue which he defines as a reliable inner
tendency to respond to situations in a morally good way. This conception
of character leads to three interconnected parts: moral knowing,
moral feeling, and moral behavior. “Good character consists
of knowing the good, desiring the good, and doing the good—habits
of the mind, habits of the heart, and habits of action.” (pg.
51).
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Each
of these areas can be further developed into a taxonomy of sorts.
Moral knowing contains six levels. (1) Moral knowing starts
with moral awareness, which is the simple recognition of moral
issues in our everyday situations of life. (2) Knowing moral values
involves
knowledge of the moral heritage of one’s society—a sort
of ethical literacy. This knowledge also involved application
to specific situation. (3) The next step of moral knowledge is perspective
taking, which is closely related to the movement from egoism
to utilitarianism
discussed in lesson three. (4) Moral reasoning consists of
understanding the meaning of being moral and why we should be moral.
(5) Decision
making focuses on choosing moral behavior from within a specific
situation. (6) Finally, self knowledge is the last and most
difficult step of moral knowing. Being aware of ones strengths and
weakness
takes considerable time and reflection.
Moral feeling also has six parts or levels. (1) Conscience has two
sides. The first and cognitive side is knowing what is right. The
second is a sense of obligation to do what is right. One can have
the cognitive knowledge but lack emotional desire. (2) Self esteem
is a prerequisite to respecting others. When we value ourselves,
we are less likely to abuse others or ourselves, or to tolerate abuse
of ourselves or others. (3) Empathy is an identification with or
vicarious sense of another’s situation. It is empathy that
allows us to take another’s perspective. (4) Loving the good
is the highest form of character. A genuine attraction to the good,
a desire to be a genuinely good person serves as motivation toward
good character. (5) Self-control is important to mention in the section
on moral feeling. Emotion can overwhelm reason. Self-control helps
us to act ethically even under the pressure of other emotions. (6)
Humility is a neglected moral virtue. It is the affective side of
self-knowledge. It includes the concept of being open to correction
and a genuine desire to correct our failings.
Moral action consists of only three parts and is, to a large extent,
the outcome of the other two parts of character. (1) Competence is
the ability to turn moral cognition and feeling into effective action.
It can be considered the active application of moral knowing and
feeling. (2) Will is related to purpose. What one perceives as the
right course of action is also often the most difficult. It can take
real will power to act in a morally correct fashion. (3) Habit is
the willful application of moral knowing, and feeling in a competent
fashion. Persons of good character often act in a moral fashion seemingly
as a matter of course and without thinking of the “right” thing
to do.
Which values should be taught?
Values are of two types, moral and non-moral. Moral values
are those that tell us what we “ought” to do. Non-moral
values carry no sense of “ought” to them. For example,
one can value classical music without feeling that it is a moral
value. Moral values can be further broken into universal and non-universal
values. Universal moral values bind all persons everywhere and
across all cultures. In the section on cultural relativism we identified
education, appropriate sexual behavior, and respect for life as
universal values. Many of the universal values were codified in
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights at the founding of the
United Nations in 1948.
Conclusion:
In summary, good character consists of moral knowing, moral
feeling and moral action. Each of those three elements can be further
analyzed into a number of different elements. Values can be either
non-moral or moral. Moral values can be either universal or non
universal. In deciding what elements of good character should be
directly taught, one should consider the universal moral values.
In character education, the preceding should be kept in mind along
with the particular needs of your community in selecting values
to teach.
Discussion questions:
- What elements of good character do you see in yourself?
What elements of good character do you think are most important
to society?
- If you could select one virtue that would become a part
of every human life, which would you choose? Why?
- What values do you think you should choose to teach in
your community?
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