Character Education is a new popular approach to teaching morals to students today. In many classrooms it has been incorporated into student’s social studies curriculum. The basic concept behind Character Education is teaching students about morals, and to generally be a good person. This helps to educate students in responsibilities that they will/do have as a person living in our society. It teaches each person to have good character, respect, responsibility, integrity, courage, justice and self-discipline. All of these aspects are important for a person to understand, and to have a good grip on to be able to be an upstanding citizen in our society today. There has been consistent positive response to the incorporation of Character Education into schools from: teachers, parents and other community members.
My Opinion
This is an excellent idea, and would help build strong upstanding future members of our society. It would help build confidence in students and allow them to be more respectful and understanding of others, it would teach tolerance and good morals. This is an excellent way to teach all students to think for themselves and to be able to make good decisions in important matters in their lives. As long as this concept is not taught as a too structured and too set-in a certain way curriculum this could be great for the coming generations. Keeping an open mind when teaching these concepts and having students to understand that their opinions do matter in these topics would help generate a large group of students who will be free and strong thinkers. This is a much needed concept in schools, primarily to be able to target students who may not have had the luck to be born in a positive environment. It will appeal to those who may not have had a very positive upbringing, and also further add to the moral understanding of those lucky enough to have a positive upbringing. One of the concepts that is taught that really appeals to me is the teaching of having respect for themselves and others. I think this is something that everybody should understand, and through school is an excellent way to teach it. Without having proper respect and understanding of others, students may not listen to others, and would be just waiting for their chance to talk. This allows people to work better as a community and have general respect for their fellow students and their teacher. This would also benefit the students home life, especially with understanding to have respect for their parents. These children will hopefully grow up to be well respected and respectful adults who are free thinking and willing to analyze things that maybe those in older generations have not. They will be able to be strong individuals and strong in groups, while being willing to speak their mind and listen to others who speak their minds on important topics. It will create a more open environment for students to be able to communicate with each other and with their teacher, this can help with any issues that may arise in schools (ie. bullying etc.).
This is an example of a way of teaching younger grade Character Education, using these 6 pillars. Trustworthiness, Respect, Responsibility, Fairness, Caring, Citizenship. This is the most popular visual aide in teaching Character Education to students.
This is another visual example of now 8 different concepts that are taught to students for Character Education.
Links
The following site gives some basic summaries of what Character education is, and the history of it’s creation and its establishment into the curriculum. Along with some interesting updates in the topic. This site is affiliated with North Carolina Public Schools Character Education.
http://www.ncpublicschools.org/charactereducation/
Here is some more closer to home information, a summary created by the York Region District School Board in regards to Character Education. There is some excellent information on here, along with a list of changes that parents, teachers and members of the community have found in students upon the introduction of Character Education. This shows the great effect that it has had, and the incorporation of it into the local school board!
http://www.yrdsb.edu.on.ca/page.cfm?id=ICM000001
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http://www.yrdsb.edu.on.ca/page.cfm?id=ICM200203
Dr. Avis Glaze has won a lifetime achievement award for her work in developing Character Education. Below is both her official website for interesting information on the woman behind Character Education. Also below is an article about her winning the lifetime achievement award for Character Education.
http://www.avisglaze.ca/
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http://www2.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/10-21-2008/0004908724&EDATE=
Character Counts is a more independent character education program for youths. It offers a list of programs and overviews of the centers that have been established. The site is organized into several different subject matters including: vaguely youth oriented programs, sports related, business matters, public service and for the police force. This site shows that Character education can be taught not only to youths but to anyone, including adults already in the workplace.
http://charactercounts.org/
Good Character is a slightly more poorly set-up site with excellent content that could be used directly in the classroom! This includes questionnaires and even some discussion questions that would be great for provoking thoughts in students. There are several teaching guides for grades from kindergarten to grade 12. It would make an excellent resource for a teacher.
http://www.goodcharacter.com/
The Character Education Partnership is a non-profit organization of individuals committed to effective character education, it is primarily based in the US. CEP is a more organized and professional partnership with a focus on Character Education. They set-up events and conferences on the subject of Character Education, the site itself is an excellent resource to keep up to date in topics on Character Education, and can even help with developing a Character Education course.
http://www.character.org/
This is a youtube video that shows some high school student's profiles and their ideas on Character Education, it was created by CEP. Notice the mention of the 6 pillars.
