Smart and Good Schools

A Paradigm Shift for Character Education

By Matthew Davidson, Thomas Lickona, and Vladimir Khmelkov

Throughout history and in cultures around the world, education rightly conceived has had two great goals: helping students become smart and helping them become good. They need character for both.

The wisdom of the ages recognizes the centrality of character in education, citizenship, and living an ethical and productive life. “Education worthy of the name,” wrote Martin Buber, “is essentially education of character.” “Within the character of the citizen,” Cicero said, “lies the welfare of the nation.” “In this imperfect world,” the psychiatrist Frank Pittman has observed, “it is character that enables people to survive, to endure, and to transcend their misfortunes.”

But how much do American schools really care about character? To be sure, the past two decades have seen a resurgence of character education. There’s been a proliferation of grassroots character education initiatives, a spate of character education books and curricula, federal and state funding of character education, the establishment of national character education organizations, the emergence of a Journal of Research in Character Education , and reports on how to prepare future teachers...