Do students think that adults are doing enough to teach them ethical behavior? Most students believe that their parents are: 83.2% said that their "parents always want them to do the ethically right thing, no matter what the cost." (But, 16.8% of parents, more than 5.8 million, believe it's sometimes permissible to do something ethically wrong.) Fewer students believe that their school is trying hard to instill ethics in students. Fewer still believe that their teachers set a good example.
In response to the perceived moral decline of youth in recent years (increasing dishonesty, violence, self-destructive behaviors, and decreasing work ethic), character education programs in the schools have become popular again. Until the middle of the 20th century, people believed that character education was an essential part of schooling. Early on, teachers used the Bible to instill moral values. But, as the country grew and continued to diversify, disputes arose. Which Bible should be used? The McGuffey Reader offered an alternative, although references to biblical teachings were included.
In the 1800s and early 1900s, the McGuffey reader had a dual purpose: teach children to read and teach them morals. Each story in the book contained lessons to be learned, such as "honesty, hard work, thriftiness, kindness, patriotism, and courage."40 One such story in McGuffey's Third Eclectic Reader, Revised Edition, tells of a boy, Rob, who was bullied by a classmate Jack. Rob got angry and chased after Jack intending to fight him. Suddenly Rob remembered one of the Commandments: "return good for evil". Upon remembering this, Rob decided to do the "right thing" and abruptly stopped chasing Jack. Just then he suddenly twisted his ankle and ended up on crutches for two weeks. Upon lamenting the fact that he did the "right thing" but still ended up injured, his friend Genie offered this advice: "If one must stumble at [the Commandments], it is a good thing to fall on the right side."
Character education fell out of favor in the middle of the 20th century. The Vienna Circle, an informal meeting of mathematicians, scientists, and philosophers that convened after World War I, influenced moral thinking. Participants in the Circle advocated that all human knowledge had logical and scientific foundations. From an ethical perspective, this meant that there was no objective right or wrong. Each person should be free to choose his or her own values and should not impose those values on others. Society was also becoming more secular: some feared that teaching morality in schools would lead to teaching religion.
By the 1960s and 1970s, character education was back in schools. Teachers, however, did not teach students "right from wrong" in the traditional sense. Students were encouraged to think about, clarify, reason, and decide on what was right or wrong in a given situation.
In the past 20 years, traditional character education has made a comeback. Various organizations such as The Josephson Institute of Ethics published guidelines on what should be taught. To answer critics who say that teaching ethics is the same as teaching religious values or values espoused by one group of people, a universally agreed-upon set of values is a part of all programs. These values include trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and citizenship.41 The Character Education Partnership (CEP) endorses 11 principles that all character education programs should contain. Some of these include:
- "Define core ethical values… and hold all school members accountable to standards of conduct consistent with those behaviors."
- "Integrate character development into all aspects of school life…[do not wait] for opportunities to present themselves."
- "Provide students with real-life challenges to help them develop a practical understanding of the moral requirements of the core ethical values."
- "Require strong moral leadership from both staff and students."
- "Develop students' intrinsic commitment both to core values and to the academic curriculum." (Starr).
Are the programs working? The Child Development Program (CDP), a character education program in California in the early 1980s, used children's literature to reflect on values and provide students regular opportunities to work together. Students shared the responsibility of creating a respectful classroom. The school offered service programs such as cross-grade tutoring and mentoring. Families were required to take part in "family homework" every two to three weeks. Sessions were intended to help parents discuss ethical issues with their children. At the end of a longitudinal study, students who had completed the program were more considerate and cooperative, more likely to feel accepted by peers, better able to solve interpersonal problems, and more tolerant of others. A follow-up study of 8th graders found that positive effects lingered: students had higher self-esteem, participated more in extracurricular activities and were less likely to use drugs and alcohol. Similar results were found in South Dakota after Character Counts! was implemented. Crime decreased by 31% to 56% between 1998 and 2000. Suspensions dropped 28%.
Title X, Part A, of The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 provides funds to states to implement character education programs in their schools. In 2002, 37 states took advantage of these funds. Will more states implement character education programs? Is character education likely to impede the decline in students' ethical behavior?
Sources: Josephson Institute of Ethics. 1998 Report Card on the Ethics of American Youth, October 1998. Bureau of the Census. Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2001. Tom Lickona et. al. The Character Education Partnership. "11 Principles of Effective Character Education." Online. Available: http://www.character.org/principles/Files/ElevenPrinciples.pdf. Starr, Linda. "Is Character Education the Answer?" Education World, 1 February 1999. Center For The 4th and 5th Rs. "Signs of a National Crisis of Character," "What is the History of Character Education?" and "The Child Development Project."Online. Available: http://www.cortland.edu/c4n5rs. Department of Education. "The Partnerships in Character Education Pilot Project Program." Online. Available: http://www.ed.gov/offices/OERI/ORAD/fie.html. Josephson Institute of Ethics. "The Six Pillars of Character." Making Ethical Decisions. Online. Available: http://www.josephsoninstitute.org/MED/MED-6pillars.htm. Josephson Institute of Ethics. "The Evidence for Character Counts!" Online. Available: http://www.charactercounts.org. Various pages from McGuffey's Third Eclectic Reader, Revised Edition, 1920. Online. Available: http://members.aol.com/shoresshc/pages/mcguffey3.html.
1 The last year for which data were available.
2 For more information on college enrollments, see Chapter 7.
4 The percentage of public elementary and secondary teachers surveyed was between 85% and 89%, except for 1996, when 70% of the teachers were surveyed.
5 Not all states reported data for school year 2000. Because of this, there may be more states in which 100% of their uncertified teachers have demonstrated subject-area knowledge.
6 Definition retrieved May 9, 2002 from http://www.title2.org/scripts/statereports/waiverdef.asp.
7 Estimate.
8 The United States ranked 8th and 14th, respectively. For more information on test scores see Chapter 7.
9 Source: Ministry of Education, Singapore. "Those Who Can, Teach." Online. Available: http://www1.moe.edu.sg/teach/those_who_can_teach.html. May 22, 2002.
10 This test must be passed the first time it is taken to be eligible for NIE.
11 Projections based on the number of degrees conferred from 1993-1998. Data retrieved from Digest of Education Statistics, 1996-2001.
12 Source: "Wanted: Teachers" Online NewsHour, September 6, 2000. Online. Available: http://www.pbs.org. May 15, 2002.
13 The percentage who said that the chances would be even that they would teach again went up from 12.5 in 1961 to 17.3 in 1996.
14 For comparison, 50,242 teachers retired in 1993-1994. In 1998-1989, 35,179 retired.
15 At the junior high and high school level. Number based on a typical average of 30 students per class, 5 classes taught per day.
16 The United States ranked 14th. For more information about TIMSS score rankings, see Chapter 7 of the current volume.
17 This was a 4-year controlled study of kindergarten through 3rd grade classrooms starting in 1985. It compared classes of 13-17 students with classes of 22-26 students, both with and without an instructional aide in the larger classrooms. Students were randomly assigned to three different types of classrooms. Teachers did not receive additional training for teaching smaller classes.
18 Source: Pritchard, Ivor. Reducing Class Size: What Do We Know? March 1999. Full citation in source note.
19 Stanford Achievement Test - 9. Testing was first implemented in the 1997-1998 school year. No standardized testing is given to kindergarten or 1st graders.
20 By comparison, 100% of teachers in large 3rd grade classrooms said that they would like to give more individualized attention, but they don't have the time, and 91.8% of teachers in large 3rd grade classrooms said that they find it difficult to meet the educational needs of all their students.
21 For a more in-depth discussion on parental involvement see Chapter 13, the panel entitled "How Involved Are Parents in Schools?"
22 Keep in mind that the percentage of responses were quite low: 1 - 18%, 2 - 13%, 3 - 11%, 4 - 8%, 5 - 7%.
23 This report by the National Commission on Excellence in Education (NCEE) was published in April 1983. It outlined the reasons, according to the NCEE, that students in the United States were falling behind students from other nations academically. The report also gave suggestions on how to improve the educational system. Two of the suggestions were to improve the curriculum and increase the use of standardized testing.
24 NA stands for not available.
25 The method was first developed by Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet around 1810 in order to teach deaf mutes to read. Since the deaf have no concept of putting sounds to letters (phonics), this method involved matching pictures to words.
26 The New York State Education Department recently changed its decades-old policy of deleting or altering "offensive" words or phrases from its literature selections on its Regents exam. In a letter to the education commissioner, those opposing the policy (including authors whose work was "edited" for the exam) wrote: "Testing students on inaccurate literary passages is an odd approach to measuring academic achievement." Source: New York Times. For full citation, see source note at the end of the panel.
27 The types of participants on the panel were specified by Congress. Source: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Report of the National Reading Panel. Teaching Children to Read: An Evidence-Based Assessment of the Scientific Research Literature on Reading and Its Implications for Reading Instruction, 2000.
28 Phonemic awareness refers to the student's ability to break words down into their constituent sounds. Fluency refers to the ability to read with speed, accuracy, and proper expression (a skill that is often neglected in the classroom, according to the Panel).
29 The U.S. does not have a mandatory set of guidelines for teaching mathematics. Some teachers have a traditional classroom, some reformed, some blend the "best" of both systems.
30 Jean Piaget wasn't an educator and never formally advocated an educational reform movement. Source: Papert, Seymour. "Child Psychologist: Jean Piaget." Time 100 Online.
31 His views on education were first published in "My Pedagogic Creed." The School Journal, January 16, 1897.
32 An educational psychologist who spent some of his career as Massachusetts Commissioner of Education.
33 Source: Klein, David. A Brief History of American K-12 Mathematics Education in the 20th Century, August 21, 2001.
34 Developed by Emile-Georges Cuisenaire in France in the 1950s. The rods are different colors based on the numbers 1 to 10. The rods were used to help children learn the basic properties of numbers and arithmetic. For example, by stacking two 2-unit rods and then putting them next to a 4-unit rod, the student can see that 2 + 2 = 4. These manipulatives are still in use today.
35 Also called constructivist math or "new-new math".
36 Source: Covina, Jennifer K. "Math Wars: Old vs. New." District Administration. Online. Available: http://www.ca-magazine.com/SpecialReports/MathScience/mathwars.html. May 17, 2002.
37 Source: "Grade 12 Item Map." The Nation's Report Card: Mathematics. Online. Available: http://nces.ed.gov. June 11, 2002.
38 A troubling side note: 2.9% of high school students said that being a person with good character is unimportant. If this percentage is applied to the high school student population at large, this translates to over 380,000 students.
39 Actually, the students may believe that it's wrong to lie, cheat, steal, and hit another person, but their actions run contrary to their beliefs. In another survey question, 78% of students agreed that "it's not worth it to lie or cheat because it hurts your character," however, 92.1% lied to a parent, 81.8% lied to a teacher, and 70.2% cheated on a test at least once in the past year.
40 Source: Center For The 4th and 5th Rs. "What is the History of Character Education?" Retrieved June 20, 2002 from http://www.cortland.edu/c4n5rs/history.htm.
41 These guidelines are from the Josephson Institute of Ethics. These are also the six elements of character adopted by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 as a requirement in any character education program a state wishes to fund with Federal monies.
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