Character Education and Core Virtues Essay

When I signed on to teach English at a core virtues discipline, I had no idea what I was in for. I nodded and smiled in my interview when the Headmaster explained the virtues curriculum, and I parried back with everything I thought she wanted to hear how I could infuse my lessons on To Kill a Mockingbird with discussions about empathy and courage. I may have even quoted Atticus line about traveling around in someone elses skin. I figured I could tack on some of that quaint virtue stuff before getting to the real meat of the lesson, the academic stuff.And for the first form I taught at Crossroads Academy, thats pretty much what I did. I made some empty gesticulations toward the core virtues bulletin board in my classroom and made some token mentions of fortitude at obvious moments in our reading of The Illiad and The Aeneid. I was teaching literature, but I certainly wasnt doing Aristotle proud. I convey come on. Character direction? Core virtues? I teach English, not Sunday scho ol, and besides, I teach nerve center school.If I were to walk into my eighth grade English class and wax rhapsodic about prudence and temperance, those kids would eat me alive. Its hard enough to keep the attention of a classroom full of middle school students without coming on like an 18th-century schoolmarm. Character education is not old-fashioned, and its not about bringing piety in to the classroom. Character is the X instrument that experts in parenting and education have deemed integral to success.Somewhere along the way, someone must have started dosing me with the character education Kool-Aid, because five years in, I have come to understand what real character education looks like and what it can do for children. I cant imagine teaching in a school that does not have a hard-core commitment to character education, because Ive seen what that education can mean to a childs emotional, moral, and intellectual development. Schools that teach character education spread abroa d higher academic performance, improved attendance, reduced violence, fewer disciplinary issues, decrease in substance abuse, and less vandalism.At a time when parents and teachers are concerned about school violence, it is worth noting that students who attend character education schools report feeling safer because they know their fellow students value respect, responsibility, compassion and hard work. From a practical perspective, its simply easier to teach children who can exercise patience, self-control, and diligence, even when they would earlier be playing outside especially whenthey would rather be playing outside. American schools used to focus on character education and civic virtue. The founders of this country, including washbowl and Abigail Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Benjamin Franklin wrote about the importance of character education in maintaining the new republic. Those founders would likely be horrified by the loss of this goal, as they all cite character education as the way to create an educated and virtuous citizenry.As Gallup polls base that over ninety percent of American adults support the teaching of honesty, democracy, acceptance of people of different races and ethnic backgrounds, patriotism, caring for friends and family members, moral courage, and the Golden Rule in public schools, it seems odd that this expression of American education has disappeared from public debate over curriculum and academic content. The core virtues prudence, temperance, fortitude, and andice introduce it into nearly every lesson we teach at our school and every facet of our daily lives on campus.The curriculum we use, designed by Mary Beth Klee, is a non-sectarian education in intellectual, moral, and civic virtues through literature, and can be used in conjunction with any academic curriculum. As the core virtues program uses examples to literature in order to illustrate character, I choose my texts accordingly. In my middle sch ool Latin and English classes, we explore the concept of temperance through discussions of Achilles impulsive rages, King Ozymandias petulant demand that we Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair, Macbeths bloody, vaulting ambition, which oerleaps itself and falls on the other. This calendar week, I gained a fantastic teaching assistant who has raised my character education skills to the next level, a immaterial teacher who has illustrated the importance of temperance far better than I or Achilles or Macbeth ever could. A Mallard duck (Mom Mallard to our students) as well ask up lobby on our campus this week. Mallards, or anas platyrhynchos, are also known as dabbling ducks, and this particular duck has apparently been dabbling in Aristotelian philosophy, because shes presented our students with a real-life lesson in the core virtue of temperance.Her nest, made from feathers shes plucked off her own breast and filled with ten eggs, lies about eighteen inches from the entrywa y to our main building, a path our students take in out of school at least six times a day. Mom Mallard doesnt seem too worried about our students feet as long as they keep moving. However, the second those feet stop and one of the children pauses to take a good, long, look, she quacks angrily and abandons her nest. Her first day in residence, she spent more time off the eggs than she did on them, and we realized we were going to have to find a way to teach our students some self-control.It just so happens that this months virtue is temperance stopping to think about our actions before we enact them, giving the best of ourselves, and saying no to our weaknesses. The middle school students use the term temperance, and the lower school kids use the term self-control, but tomato, tomato, its all the same idea. In Stanfords famous sample on self-control, children were faced with the immediate reality of one marshmallow versus the promise of two marshmallows if they can just delay for fifteen minutes.The children who were able to resist temptation and wait fifteen minutes for that second marshmallow had better life outcomes in the form of lower obesity rates, higher SAT scores, and higher levels of education. Self-control itself does not make a kid smarter, or fitter, or more proficient at test-taking, but its the essential skill hidden within all of these coercive outcomes. Character education is not old-fashioned, and its not about bringing religion in to the classroom. Character education teaches children how to make wise decisions and act on them.Character is the X factor that experts in parenting and education have deemed integral to success, both in school and in life. Paul Tough, author of How Children Succeed, calls that character-based X factor grit, while educational consultant Dr. Michele Borba calls it moral intelligence. When I asked parenting expert Borba to explain why she thinks character education is so overlooked as a lively part of children s success, she wrote, Thats what parents dont seem to get, the hidden values of character traits for success. They see character education as fluff, because thats frequently how its taught posters and worksheets.Character education needs to be relevant. It needs to be woven in curriculum, not tacked on. We are such a trophy-, SAT-obsessed society, but if parents would cognise the value beyond the humanness, civility and ethics, they might get it. Here on our campus, our marshmallow is a duck. Our students must weigh their desire for a quick peek at Mom Mallard with the promise of ten ducklings waddling around our playground in 28 days. If everyone, even the youngest, most impulsive kindergarteners, can learn to exercise self-control, we go away all benefit.Next week, Mom Mallard will catch a bit of a break from our students, because they will be confined to their classrooms for a week of standardized testing. Our character education curriculum may not show up as an increase in this years test scores but then again, it could self-control, after all, is exactly whats needed to put off a video game or a TV show for another 20 minutes to finish reading or studying. Though temperance isnt easily measured with number two pencils and bubble forms, it has the message to foster and reinforce the skills those bubble forms do test.