WE THE PEOPLE – Teaching Character Education
By: Lyle J. Rapacki, Ph.D.
Daily we hear or read of another crisis; it can become overwhelming! Allow me to add but another...the lack of teaching character in our schools. The teaching of character in our schools 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. Young people in America today face a crisis of character. Many young people struggle to distinguish right from wrong and seem indifferent to whether it even matters.
C.S. Lewis, the great religious philosopher from England tells a story, an allegory, of a mythic country where the educational leaders decided to drop mathematics from the course of studies. This was a popular decision with almost everyone except the mathematics teachers. Students cheers, and the general populace, awash with painful memories of cosines and unbalanced equations, went along with the policy. And all was sweetness and light in this country - for about a dozen years. Then people started noticing that trolley fare collectors never seemed to get the fares right. Confusion and tension abounded as shopkeepers and their customers haggled over incorrect change. The chorus of complaints was ignored until the tax system began to grind to a halt. Of course, the no-math policy then came under serious review, and mathematics was quickly returned to the curriculum.
C.S. Lewis's story illustrates a truth that is too often forgotten: there is a direct, cause-and-effect connection between a society's education system and its social progress or decline. Today in America we have far too many twelve-year-old’s pushing drugs, fourteen-year-olds having babies, sixteen-year-olds killing each other, and kids of all ages admitting to lying, cheating and stealing. We have crime and violence everywhere and unethical behavior in business, the professions, and government. In other words, we have a crisis of character all across America that is threatening to destroy the fabric of this country.
When our country was founded, building character was considered just as important as imparting intellectual knowledge by our educational system, from first grade through college. For the past fifty years, character education was dropped from the public schools. If the schools educate students to be young people of high character, our country will eventually become a nation of high character. Historically one of the other benefits of character education in schools is that academic performance rises with good behavior. If you create a moral and caring community in the classroom, not only can the teacher teach, but the students will feel better about themselves and work harder.
The English word "character" comes from the Greek word "charassein," which means to "engrave," such as on a wax tablet, a gemstone, or a metal surface. Thus character is a distinctive mark or sign we carry with us. It is very simply the sum of our intellectual and moral habits - those that are good, and those that are bad. Becoming a person of character means control of ones' own clamoring desires, developing a deep regard for others, and being ready to put aside ones' own interests and sometimes even ones' own needs in order to serve others. Children need help to see this, and to act on it.
Many critics and educators are convinced that character education must be avoided because, at its base, it is nothing more than brainwashing. Critics of character education claim that it amounts to imposing particular values or personality traits on young people or crude manipulation of children by the dominant powers in their lives. They see this as "indoctrination." Educators are fearful of being accused of indoctrinating students rather than educating them. Yet all cultures recognize the need to help children become members of society. To do so means that we must instruct them in doctrines, theories, beliefs, and principles. A mother sternly telling her three-year-old not to play so rough with his baby sister is clearly a form of indoctrination. A seventh-grade teacher who puts a stop to a wolf's pack mentality of taunting a new student is instructing the students about the moral values of civility and charity. A church that engages its high school youth group as cooks and servers in a homeless shelter is indoctrinating the young in an ethic of service. Indeed, every act of education can be conceived as indoctrination.
Americans are not pleased with the job education is doing. The Gallup Poll asking about the views of Americans on the performance of the public schools do not paint a pretty picture. Polls reveal major dissatisfaction with the lack of discipline in our classrooms. Apparently people believe the schools are disordered and make relatively few demands on our children. Against this is the 90% or more of adults who support our school's teaching honesty (97%); democracy (93%); acceptance of people of different color or race or ethnic background (91%); moral courage (91%); patriotism (91%); caring for family and friends (91%); and the Golden Rule (90%).
I believe we need to take students seriously as persons, and help them become informed and responsible moral agents. We need to teach the strength of character, in that, teach students to make good choices and to honor their commitments. For students to choose nobly they need direction, and that direction can be incorporated into academia.
"A child is a person who is going to carry on what you have started. He is going to sit where you are sitting, and when you are gone, attend to those things which you think are important. You may adopt all the policies you please, but how they are carried out depends on him. He will assume control of your cities, states, and nations. He is going to move-in and take over your churches, schools, universities, corporations. The fate of humanity is in his hands." - Abraham Lincoln
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