The What

In 1993, the Josephson Institute of Ethics sponsored a meeting in Aspen, Colorado, at which national leaders discussed the “state of moral decline” and what could be done about it. The 28 leaders proposed a common set of values that would transcend cultural, political, economic, and religious lines. The results of this meeting led to what has been called the Aspen Declaration on Character Education.

According to the Declaration, effective character education is based on core ethical values rooted in democratic society, in particular, respect, responsibility, trustworthiness, justice and fairness, caring, and civic virtue and citizenship. The premise was: “People do not automatically develop good moral character, therefore, conscientious efforts must be made to help [them] develop values and abilities necessary for moral decision making and conduct” (Murphy, 1998, p. 22; Josephson Institute 1993).

A year later, the Character Education Partnership (CEP) formed, its main purpose being to bring people together to help develop good character and civic virtue in schools and communities across the nation. These two efforts followed after four decades of events leading to the current character education efforts in schools, described by DeRoche and Williams (2001).

Thus, character education is an “intentional, proactive effort by schools, districts, and states to instill in their students important core, ethical values such as caring, honesty, fairness, responsibility, and respect for self and others…” and “ to develop students socially, ethically, and academically by infusing character development into every aspect of the school culture and curriculum, and to help students develop good character, which includes knowing, caring about, and acting upon core ethical values…” (www.character.org).

Lickona and Davidson (2005) recently proposed a new paradigm for character education, focusing on two elements: performance character and moral character. Performance character relates to one’s mastery and thrust for excellence in school, the workplace, and in other experiences. Here the authors use virtue words such as effort, diligence, perseverance, and self-discipline. Moral character is relational and ethical; it concerns how one treats others in interpersonal and social matters. The virtue words used here include integrity, justice, caring, respect, and empathy.

The Why

Ryan and Bohlin (1999) developed five arguments favoring the implementation of character education programs. Their first argument centers on the “intellectual authorities” in human history such as Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Dewey, Confucius, Buddha, and Lao-tzu. All called for teaching the young the positive virtues of life and attending to the formation of their character.
The writings of Jefferson, Madison, Adams, Franklin, and others frame the authors’ second argument—the benefit to a civil and civic society. Add to this list Horace Mann, the “father of pubic schools” who promoted academics (reading, writing, and computing), and emphasized the need for and importance of character. “Like Jefferson, Mann believed that training in character would produce responsible and virtuous citizens…” (Gibbon, 2002, p. 33).

A third argument posed is labeled the “law-based argument.” In most states, there are laws or education codes supporting character education efforts. To put it another way, the authors note: “no state codes of education…discourage character education” (p. 21).

Public support of character education is the basis for their fourth argument. For decades, the public has expressed a particular interest in having schools address matters related to character (Elam, Rose, and Gallup, 1993; Elam and Rose, 1995).

Ryan and Bohlin label their fifth argument the “inevitability argument,” noting that “children cannot enter the educational system at the age of four and stay until age of sixteen or seventeen without having their character and their moral values profoundly affected by the experience…” (p. 22).

A sixth reason, the state of American culture, may be added to Ryan and Bohlin’s five. Lickona (2004) discusses this concern under the term “cultural indicators”; he includes increases in violence, divorce, fatherless homes, unwed mothers, teen cheating, stealing, lying, television watching, and the impact of the media.

Federal funding is a final reason supporting the case for character education programs. Since 1995, the federal government has funneled millions of dollars into state agencies to support character education efforts. For example, the No Child Left Behind Act expanded funding for the “Partnerships in Character Education Program” from $8 million to $24 million (www.ed.gov/programs/charactered/resources.html).

The How

The final foundational question addresses ways character education is organized and implemented in elementary and secondary schools. Two frameworks provide a template for a comprehensive character education program. Ryan and Bohlin’s character education framework (1999) recommends that character education activists and school stakeholders address such factors as mission, core virtues, partnerships, teamwork, implementation, meetings and assessment, staff development, student involvement, extra-curricular activities, and evaluation.

DeRoche and Williams (2001) proposed nine keys to successfully implementing a comprehensive character education program: leadership, expectations, school climate, implementation criteria, standards, training, partnerships, resources, and assessment.

An umbrella is a useful metaphor for what character education looks like in most schools. The umbrella’s handle may be said to represent the agreed-upon core character virtues. It is this “handle of virtues,” along with the mission, expectations, and leadership, that supports the umbrella’s eight panels. The eight panels, in this scenario, show where the core virtues and other life skills are taught, nurtured, modeled, and practiced. With slight variations the pattern represented by the umbrella panels include:
1) academic achievement
2) curriculum
3) classroom climate
4) co-curricular programs
5) instruction
6) partnerships
7) school culture, and
8) special programs (anger management, conflict
resolution, anti-bullying programs, ethical deci-
sion making, and so forth).

Many “schools of character” use most of the factors in the framework and all of the elements in the umbrella metaphor. Examples can be found in a listing of award-winning schools on the Character Education Partnership Web site (www.character.org).

The evidence shows that effective, comprehensive character education programs in schools improve student academic achievement and promote positive social behaviors. Character development efforts reduce student at-risk behaviors and the rate of suspensions, expulsions, and dropouts, while increasing student knowledge and demonstration of virtues such as respect, responsibility, self-discipline, tolerance, caring, and empathy. Character education initiatives contribute to a healthy and safe school environment, enhance student civic participation, contribute to a decrease in discipline problems in the classroom and school, help students reflect on their behaviors and thus make wiser life choices, and encourage more parent involvement in school events and in children’s education.

References:
DeRoche, E. and Williams, M. , 2001, Educating Hearts and Minds: A Comprehensive Character Education Framework, second edition (Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press).

Elam, S., Rose, L. and Gallup, A. The 25th Annual Phi Delta Kappan/Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitudes toward the Public Schools. Phi Delta Kappan, 73:1 (1993): 137-52.

Elam, S., and Rose, L. The 27th Annual Phi Delta Kappan/Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitudes toward the Public Schools. Phi Delta Kappan, 73:1 (1995): 41-56.

Gibbon, P. A hero of education, Education Week, May 29, 2002: 33, 36.

Josephson Institute, 1993, Character Counts Coalition, Marina del Rey, CA: Joseph and Edna Josephson Institute of Ethics.

Lickona, T. and Davidson, M., 2005, Smart & Good High Schools: Integrating Excellence and Ethics for Success in School, Work, and Beyond (Courtland, NY: Center for the 4th and 5th Rs).

Lickona, T., 1991, Educating for Character: How Schools Can Teach Respect and Responsibility (New York: Bantam).

Lickona, T., 2004, Character Matters (New York: Simon and Schuster).

Murphy, M., 1998, Character Education in America’s Blue Ribbon Schools (Lancaster, PA: Technomic Publishing).

Ryan, K. and Bohlin, K.,1999, Building Character in Schools (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass).

This article is excerpted and adapted, with permission, from a longer article titled “Do Character Development Programs Really Work? Moving from Foundations to Findings in a Wider (Non-military) Context,” written for presentation to the International Society for Military Ethics.