Academic
Exchange Quarterly Spring
2004 Volume 8, Issue 1
Daniel C. Elliott, Ed.D.
The continuing degeneration of personal virtue among the world's societies seems to be emerging as the single-most urgent issue of our time. Until recent years, public schools had long since deferred from their original roles in morality and character education, though many outside of the school systems continued political pressure to move schools either toward or away from a values-oriented curriculum. This author analyses this history and poses questions and ideas about the appropriate teaching of the difference between right and wrong in American schools.
The continuing degeneration of personal virtue among the world's societies
seems to be emerging as the single-most urgent issue of our time. The 1970’s brought
a revisitation of ‘values” but under a personalistic approach called “Values
Clarification.” Values were to be
presented in a neutral way to students who were to clarify and select their choices. There were no incorrect choices, except those
for which the individual failed to formulate a supporting rationale. The 1980’s and 90’s saw a rapidly
intensifying pluralistic view of American society. When the question of values came up, people
asked, “Whose values should we teach?” Many in North American society believe
in a core set of virtues found most commonly in a Christian worldview or a
Judeo-Christian philosophy, even many who would not characterize themselves as
particularly “religious.” Yet the personalistic approach to identification of
“virtue“ failed to bring about a more moral society but has, instead, resulted
in moral decline. Public schools had
long since deferred from their original roles in morality and character
education and even many churches or religious organizations were not picking up
the slack (Meade, 1990
In March 1990, Robert Coles, a child psychiatrist and Harvard professor,
one who called himself “a member of the liberal intellectual left”, was quoted
as wistfully recalling “the good old days when religion was taught in the
schools” (Meade, 1990). Coles sensed a
void--something missing from American homes and schools-- missing for
years. Coles directed a major research
project. The missing element was, they
concluded, a strong, unarguable notion of right and wrong, good and bad.
Coles’
findings revealed a nation of children who have a complicated belief system
that usually runs counter to traditional values. “There was an unmistakable erosion of
children’s faith in, and support for, traditional sources of authority.” More than parents, teachers or authoritative
officials, children turned to peers for guidance on matters of right and
wrong. Coles described conversations
with many kids whose consciences he said were “not all that muscular.” (Meade,
1990)
The New Character Education
A new ground swell is observed forming in the 1990’s seeking to restore ethics, morality, and virtue to a central focus in public schooling. More than 30 educational leaders from state school boards, teachers' unions, universities, ethics centers, youth organizations, and religious groups met in 1992 at the Josephson Institute of Ethics. They formulated eight principles for character education— The Aspen Declaration on Character Education. (Lickona, 1993). In March of 1993, a national coalition for character development formed with representatives from business, government, and education, as well as churches. They began to formulate an agenda for reinstituting morality in public school curriculum and instruction. (Haynes 1994)
Young people increasingly hurt themselves and others because they lack
awareness of moral values. Effective
character education improves student behavior, makes schools more civil
communities, and leads to improved academic performance. Many students come to
school with little moral teaching from their parents, communities or religious
institutions. We know today that the inclusion of character development
emphases within the curriculum of our schools will do the following.
1. Add Meaning
to Education
Moral questions are among the great questions facing the individual person and the human race. There is
no such thing as a value-free education.
Schools teach values every day by design or default.
2. Sustain and
Strengthen our Culture
Transmitting moral values to the next generation
has always been one of the more important functions of a civilization.
Democracies have a special need for moral education, because democracy is government
of and by the people themselves.
3. Model
Civility
There is broad based and growing support for character education in the schools. Common ground exists on core moral values although there may be significant disagreement on the applicationof some of these values to certain controversial issues (Nyland and MacDonald, 1997). The Boyer Institute has been actively promoting research that reveals North American core values (or “common virtu,” also referred to as “common decency.” Honesty, responsibility, self-discipline, giving, compassion, perseverance, and loving are virtue terms most often cited. However, in application, “honesty” can be applied differently according to other elements of the actor’s worldview or philosophy. Compassion and/or responsibility might look different among the sub-groups citing these terms.
Thus, a person of true character, according to
experts, is trustworthy, treats all people with respect, acts responsibly,
maintains self-control, is fair and just, is caring, pursues excellence, and is
an all around desirable citizen.
A State Education Code Basis for Teaching Fundamental
Moral Values
Though often humorously critiqued as a
state that is less than ‘virtuous’ in its social ethic, nevertheless, California,
as a state, has raised the bar for public schools and virtue-based curriculum
for several decades. Ever since the
1970s the California legislature has aggressively addressed the question of
values and virtue in the curriculum, though this often went unnoticed or
unheralded by the media or even the schools themselves. Currently, California Ed. Code 44806 tells us that it is the duty of teachers to “impress upon
the minds of pupils the principles of morality, truth, justice, patriotism, and
a true comprehension of rights, duties, and dignity of American
citizenship...” The code further directs
us to teach students to . . .
avoid idleness, profanity, and falsehood, and to instruct
them in the manners and morals and the principles of a free government. Each
teacher shall endeavor to impress
upon the minds of the pupils the principles of morality, truth, justice,
patriotism, a true comprehension of the rights,
duties and dignity of American citizenship, including: kindness toward
domestic pets and the humane treatment of living creatures.
In Moral and Civic Education and
Teaching About Religion, the Board directs school
personnel to teach students about: morality, including respect for differences
and the significance of religion; truth; open discussion; justice; patriotism;
self-esteem; integrity; empathy, including the “golden rule” (The Christian
Bible, Matthew 7:12); exemplary conduct; moral interaction and ethical
reflection; and the capacity to recognize values, including respect for the
family, property, reliability, and for law.
The California Board of Education says, “School personnel must foster in
students an understanding of the moral values that form the foundation of
American society.” California teachers
must teach students that citizens in a free society respect the worth and
dignity of others, as well as their freedom of conscience. Religion is to be presented and viewed as primary source for the presence of
basic moral principals. While no
individual religious system may be prescribed, school faculty must help
students recognize the sources of morality in history, law, and experience and
must help students appreciate the significant contributions of religion,
including the sacredness of human life and belief in freedom of worship. Morality is defined as “responsibility for
personal decisions and conduct and the obligation to demonstrate concern about
the well-being of others, along with showing respect for living creatures and
the physical environment.”
Justice is defined as “fairness in dealing with others, and is considered a
hallmark of American society.” The
California Board of Education said that “one owes to oneself and to others the
obligation to engage in a constant effort to see that justice is attained.”
Jesus, quoted in Matthew 22:21, (The Christian Bible) instructs people to give
to the government that which it was due (give to Caesar that which is
Caesar's...) and to reflect similar obedience in relationship to God. Loyalty to one’s government is taught
throughout Judeo Christian thought and scriptures, being only excepted by
loyalty to God. In the case of our
nation, we pledge to it as “one nation under God”. Such a concept bears full discussion in our
classrooms, though such discussions must be sensitive and appropriate for the
age and maturation levels of the students involved.
The California Board of Education says that “Self-esteem and esteem for others
are based on the intrinsic worth and dignity of individuals, not on academic
ability or physical prowess. Jesus said
that we must love others as we love
ourselves (Matthew 19:19 ff), that normal human beings do esteem themselves,
love themselves, provide for their own basic needs by nature. It is with God’s permission that we do
so. This discussion is authorized in
California classrooms.
The California Board of Education tells us
“School personnel should encourage students to live and speak with
integrity; that is, to be trustworthy.
To foster integrity is to help
build character, to assist students to be honest with themselves, to promote a
wholeness unimpaired by self-deceit, and to encourage the development of
reliability in relations with others.” In
view of recent questions about the integrity among business and government
leaders, may would suggest that there is
a curriculum related rationale for teachers to discuss these issues in
class with students.
In Moral and Civic Education and
Teaching About Religion, we read, “The golden rule, a
rule stating that we should do to others as we would have others do to us, is
an ancient maxim shared by many peoples.
This simple rule must be paramount in one’s dealings with others. For example, school personnel should
demonstrate in their lives a capacity to empathize with students;...” In Matthew 7:12, Jesus said “so in everything, do to others what you
would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”
Exemplary Conduct, Moral Interaction with Ethical Reflection, and Capacity to Recognize Values
“Exemplary Conduct,” “Moral Interaction with Ethical Reflection”, and
“Capacity to Recognize Values” are three more areas of basic value that the
California Board of Education requires us to teach our children and youth. As
well, we have so much to teach in curricula that we must infuse content within
content, integrating curricula around organizing themes that reflect major
real-life problems or challenges. These common virtues can become the themes
around which we organize the study of history, social relationships, apply
mathematics, hypothesize and investigate scientific phenomena, or acquire and
develop our mastery of rudimentary communication skills like reading, writing,
and speaking. Information about
religions, too, is necessary and essential to a properly educated youngster.
Ernest Boyer, a Christian, an educator, a curricularist, and long-time director
of the Carnegie Foundation, taught that there is common ground on which we can all stand and rejoice. “Amidst the
diversity [of value commitments]...there is still a great consensus in this
nation about appropriate behavior. We
can agree on the need to be honest,
to respect the property of others, to
refrain from physical attacks on one
another, to obey laws, to finish a task once begun...” (Boyer,
1988).
Values are noun words
According to Webster's
(a) Upon what
do I continually dwell and about what do I intensely worry?
(b) For what
do I take risks?
(c) For what
do I consistently expend (or more often deficit
spend) time, money, and energy?
Introspective and reflective answers
to these questions begin to clarify our core or primary values rather than
ethics, morals, beliefs, philosophies, or theologies. Secondary and tertiary values most often
arise out of the stuff of our core or
primary values. Core values are those
things, attitudes, ideas, activities, or people for which we demonstrate a
passionate—even non-reasoned, inarticulate, often unconscious—commitment.
That which we say we value does not
necessarily reflect our value-core.
Instead, that which we prove in
practice we value —those
"things" which despite our ethics, morals, beliefs, philosophies, or
theologies, to which we naturally return again and again—are the true
values. We all have consciously or
unconsciously developed “value-driven mental matrices—those ‘mothers’ or
‘wombs’—which motivate or predispose us to manufacture and emphasize certain ethics,
morals, beliefs, philosophies, or theologies.
We create secondary values often to counter or to justify our core
primary values (Cheskey, in Elliott, 1996).
Our core values initiate and permeate the way in which we decode or interpret
the world: (1) they focus our attention;
(2) they form a processing matrix or schema and (3) because values are
idiosyncratic and complex, they force us to attend and to process
idiosyncratically and complexly.
Valuing Is A Verb—An Action Process Of The Will
A value is
something that we desire—a "good" that guides our thinking, actions,
and lives. Values are good ends that we
desire, pursue, and ought to. Values are
involved in all sorts of areas: moral values-—right and wrong. People's behavior has positive and negative
value. We might be mistaken in regarding
a particular value as good. Intellectual
values: truth, understanding. Aesthetic
values: beauty, creativity. Economic
values, economic security, work (beyond the paycheck). Psychological values: happiness,
satisfaction. Social values: friendship,
acceptance, respect. Religious values:
value of knowing God. These areas each
represent different aspects of life, each an area of study. All areas of life and study are
value-laden.
Value is inherent in the very nature of things—the potentiality for certain
value being realized. There can be a
"hierarchy" of values. Many of
the value-judgments we make are actually a ranking of valuing various other
things. We look for the "highest good" the greatest value that will
unify the other values—intrinsically valuable—good in and of itself, as opposed
to being merely of instrumental value—good for something else. (Holmes, 1986)
Valuing is a very complex activity. There
is a dimension of choice, commitment, direction. It is a very powerful, effective thing. Good is attractive, but how do we get people
to respond? Values are transmitted most
effectively in human relationships.
Values assimilated along the way become ideals. A person might have all the right ideals
without having actualized them. Virtue
is a matter of Character. Character is a
collection of one’s virtues. More than a
collection, character is a set of
character traits—a unified set of good
traits. Bad character would be an
absence of good traits, or even a collection of recognized bad traits, such as
selfishness, cruelty, avorice, jelousy, hostility, etc.
Aristotle postulated that if one developed psychologically one
would move towards virtue. Discipline
while young (operant conditioning) was paramount for Aristotle, though later
writings revealed that even this failed to produce his ideals in children of
the wealthy class or the ruling class. Habit formation begins with intentional
decisions, made on the basis of repeated reflection, repeated deliberate
choices—habit of the mind. There is a
clear understanding about basic virtue in North American societies. It has been codified into laws, regulations,
and rules for organizational operation for centuries. The challenge is not knowing what the
virtues are, but is being able to live according to them. We will never improve the virtue base of our
society by ignoring them in the education of the young. Theodore Rosevelt has rightly said "To educate a person in mind and not in
morals is to educate a menace to society."
It can be done. It has been done in certain lighthouse schools
across the United States. We have the
knowledge to do it. Do we have the will
power and the willingness to change?
Reference List
Boyer,
Ernest L. (1989). New fuel for school reform, The Blackboard
Fumble. pp. 18ff.
California
Department of Education (1991). Moral
and Civic Education and Teaching About Religion.
Cheskey, J.
in
Coles, Robert, and Genevie,
Louis (March, 1990). The moral life of
Haynes,
Charles C. (Ed.). (1994). Finding Common Ground: A First Amendment Guide to Religion and
Public Education.
Lickona, Thomas. (1991) Educating for
Character: How our schools can teach respect and responsibility.
Lickona, Thomas (November 1993) The Return of
Character Education Educational Leadership 51: 3 Association for Supervision
and Curriculum Development.
Meade,
Jeff (March, 1990). The moral life of
Nyland, Larry and
Ginger MacDonald, (1997) Character Education: The Transmission of Values in
Public Schools and in a
The
Holy Bible, New International Version, (1984) International Bible Society.