Write a paragraph that explains how ethics and mutual respect are the basis for a sense of duty and responsibility, whether among children, between children and parents, or between students and school.Minimum 250 words
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Schools must join families, churches, and communities in making universal ethical values – such as respect, responsibility, honesty, compassion, and moral courage – part of the personal and collective consciences. To maximize the moral clout of schools in the face of destructive societal influences, everything in the school day must be seen as affecting values and character. This article outlines the ingredients of a comprehensive approach to character development and offers supporting research and practical examples of how these principles are being implemented in many schools.
In response to these cultural indicators of moral regression, a character education movement is beginning to emerge across the country. It is based on the belief that destructive and irresponsible youth behaviors such as violence, dishonesty, drug abuse, and sexual promiscuity have a common core: the absence of good character.
Good character can be defined as virtue, habits of moral action such as Plato's cardinal virtues of justice, prudence, temperance, and fortitude. In my own work as a psychologist and educator, I have found it useful to define character as having three interrelated parts: moral knowing, moral feeling, and moral action - knowing the good, desiring the good, and doing the good. When we think about the kind of character we want for our children, it’s clear that we want them to be able to judge what is right, care deeply about what is right, and then do what they believe to be right “even in the face of pressure from without and temptation from within.
People obviously do not automatically develop good character. Conscientious efforts must be made by schools, families, churches, and communities to help young persons understand, internalize, and act upon core ethical values such as respect, responsibility, honesty, fairness, integrity, compassion, self-control, and moral courage.
Universal moral values such as these are not mere subjective preferences (as values clarification had it), like taste in music or clothes; rather, they have objective worth and a claim on our personal and collective conscience. Moral values carry obligation; we must abide by them - be fair, honest and respectful, for example, in our dealings with others - even when we’d rather not. The validity of these moral values and their power to hold us accountable derive from the fact that they affirm our human dignity and promote the good of the individual as well as the common good. They meet the classical ethical tests of reversibility (Would you want all persons to act this way?) and universalizability (Would you want all persons to act this way in a similar situation?). They are also consistent with what we have historically understood to be the requirements of God, as expressed, for example, in the Ten Commandments.
A comprehensive approach to character education
The family is the most important influence on a child's character, and schools cannot fully compensate for family failure in this area. But schools can do an enormous amount, far more than most school staff now do, or even imagine they might try to do, to develop good character in young people. In the process, school professionals also can work with parents to encourage and support them in their role as the primary moral teachers of their children.
If schools wish to maximize their moral clout in the face of the negative societal influences that surround children, they must take a comprehensive approach. This approach views everything in the school day as affecting values and character. The way in which sports are conducted, grades are allotted, teachers behave, and corridors monitored all send moral messages. If a school wants to instill values such as respect and responsibility, the messages have to be consistent.
In short, the school itself must embody good character. It must be a civil, just, and caring environment in which the values that are preached are practiced. It must be a community that helps students form caring attachments to adults and to each other. These attachments will nurture a student’s desire to learn and to be a good person.