Values, Views, or Virtues?
People are making the connection between the nightly news and discouraging reports on American students. We are regularly bombarded both with scandalous news about our public figures' unsavory acts and hypocrisies and with depressing reports of our students' cheating, lack of self-discipline, and lackluster approach to schoolwork. But things are changing, too. People have again begun to talk about the importance of character and personal integrity. Stephen R. Covey, the author of one of the decade's most widely read books, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People , claims that Americans are shifting paradigms--from a concern for our personalities to a concern for our characters and questions of who we are and the kinds of persons we are becoming. We have grown dissatisfied with the mere social savvy of "winning friends and influencing people." We are bringing back into focus the personal need for something deeper and more stable.
Voices from within and beyond our schools are calling for "character education," something that has been missing-in-action from many schools since the late '60s. The reasons for this renewed interest in what has been called the "schools' latest fad and oldest mission" are many, varying from the high levels of youth pathologies (violent crimes and suicides), drug use, and promiscuity, to the inability of many young people to fulfill their responsibilities as students. Teachers complain that, on the one hand, a small percentage of high-achieving students exude a "me-first-at-all-cost" approach to school and life, and that, on the other hand, by high school a much larger percentage come to school with a sense of "life-sucks-and-then-you-die" defeatism.
These social problems and self-destructive student attitudes are making the teaching career and life in classrooms increasingly more difficult. Nevertheless, they also are driving an awakening of the conviction that the institution of schools, along with family, church, and community, has an important role to play in helping children develop good consciences and ethical behavior. Often, as a result of the prompting of parents, teachers are rediscovering that they, de facto, are moral authorities and role models. However, being told that they are "character educators" does not tell teachers what...
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