 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
||||||||||
|
(continued from previous page) Are There Common Standards? One of the first questions parents and others typically ask about character education is whose values should be taught. In a plural society, can there be common standards of right and wrong? According to Dr. Kidder, there is more agreement than one might suppose about whether common standards exist. In a 2002 Gallup survey of American adults, he noted, 80 percent agreed with the statement, “I believe there are clear guidelines about what is good or evil that apply to everyone regardless of his or her situation.” Numerous surveys conducted by the Institute for Global Ethics, Gallup, and other sources, both in the United States and abroad, point to five core ethical values that seem to transcend culture, race, gender, age, and socio-economic conditions. These five core values are:
“Our research shows that these five values are global, universal,” Dr. Kidder said. “They hold up in all countries, across all demographics. This is hugely important because if teachers don't understand that these values are universal, they might shy away from teaching character education for fear of offending someone’s values.” The charge to schools is to help students understand how to use those core values as the basis for moral decision-making. In decision-making, Kidder explained, there are generally two situations: right-versus-wrong and right-versus-right. Right-versus-wrong decisions are generally easy for young children to understand. They can comprehend why it is not ethical to cheat on one’s taxes, lie under oath, or buy a twelve-and-under movie ticket for a fourteen year old. The real difficulty comes when individuals are faced with right-versus-right dilemmas. Examples abound, Dr. Kidder says. For example, it is right to protect the endangered spotted owl in the old-growth forests of the American Northwest—and it is right to provide jobs for loggers. It is right to provide our children with the finest public schools available—and it is right to prevent the constant upward ratcheting of state and local taxes. Generally, these right-versus-right dilemmas fall into four categories:
“Understanding this concept is very important when you are teaching to the middle school and high school levels,” Dr. Kidder explained. “If you start educating very young children about compassion, honesty, fairness, respect, and responsibility, they absorb those message concretely. They think, ‘These things are important and I must always apply these values all of the time.’” “However, in middle school, they find that they can’t always apply strict rules. Sometimes their compassion pulls one way and their sense of responsibility pulls another way. If we are not careful in teaching them about right-versus-right, they think that ethics are not relevant. We need to take our teaching to a more sophisticated realm, teaching them how to evaluate complex situations of right-versus-right and to determine which is the highest value in each particular case.” How Is Character Education Related to School Safety? According to Dr. Kidder, collectively identified core values are the cornerstone of all school and community efforts to create and sustain an ethical, responsible, and safe school climate. “There is a clear connection between character education and school climate and safety,” he noted. “You could conceivably create the safest school in the world by installing metal detectors, putting bars on the windows, and chains on the students’ legs. But at what cost? Instead, the most effective way to create a safe school is by creating a climate that truly respects students and teaches personal responsibility.” “How do you do that?” he asked. “Our
research shows that the tone at the top is the key. If your principal
and other top decision-makers embrace the concept that ethics and
values matter, they will matter. If you have cynics at the top,
they won’t. If teachers and principals behave rudely or disrespectfully
to each other or to the students, students can see that. High school
students, in particular, can spot The values-based school, he noted, is one that embraces responsibility, honesty, respect, fairness, and compassion at all levels. It is one that makes ethics part of the regular public discourse. “We need a language of ethics that is not Victorian, not preachy or naïve,” Dr. Kidder said. “We need to give students the language and tools they need to address the tough questions of the world in a robust, powerful, and thoughtful manner.”
|
