Character education: a critical analysis; robert tatman, stacey  (Page 2/16)

Progress of character education

Huffman (1993) wrote that, “our early schools treated the transmission of knowledge as secondary to character development. Students needed to be literate in order to read the Bible” (p. 24). As Bruce (2004) so aptly noted, character education is nothing new and has been around as long as there have been schools. Character development is one aspect of the great tradition that that had its origins in the ancient and primitive cultures, and was a tradition that, “was concerned with good habits of conduct as contrasted with moral concepts” (Wynne, 1986, p. 4).

To illustrate, Doyle (1997) set the historical framework for character education when writing that “From the time of the ancient Greek to sometime in the late 19th century, a singular idea obtained: education’s larger purpose was to shape character, to make men (and later, women) better people” (¶ 2). Character education is reflected in a historically rich context with advocates including Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Dewey (Heslep, 1995). Part of democratic thought throughout history, the formal teaching of morals and values, extends back to both Plato and Aristotle in fourth century B.C. who understood that the purpose of education was to train good and virtuous citizens (Skinner, 2004).

In the latter half of the 5th century B.C., Isocrates, a Greek sophist considered to be the father of education, wrote his summary conclusion and the goals of education in his Panathenaicus. An educated person, according to Isocrates, is one who manages daily circumstances well, and demonstrates accurate judgment, decency, goodness, honor, and good-nature. The educated individual also exhibits slowness to take offense, discipline in pleasures, braveness under misfortune, and humility in success (Carus, 2004). Isocrates believed that those persons who possess all of such virtues to be truly educated, as well as both wise and complete.

Wood and Roach (1999) noted that “for centuries educators have talked about the role of education in teaching values” (p. 213). In United States history, McClellan (1992) traced the importance and the vital purpose of character education. The term character education has also been discussed for years and refers to a planned, comprehensive, and systematic approach to teach values such as self-respect, responsibility, trustworthiness, and citizenship. Houston (1998) stated that character education has a central role to play in school reform. Berman (1998) noted that, “Nurturing a democratic culture and a civil society was the central mission of public education at its inception” (¶ 5). Houston prioritized both character and civility as not simply esoteric or structured as add-ons in the school curriculum; they are “central to our mission and to our very survival as an institution and a society” (¶ 6).

Referencing the seventeenth century democratic philosopher, John Locke, Skinner (2004) illustrated how Locke viewed learning as secondary to virtue when noting that, “Reading and writing and learning I allow to be necessary, but yet not the chief business [of education]. I imagine you would think him a very foolish fellow, that should not value a virtuous or a wise man infinitely before a great scholar” (p. 1). “If our nation is to repossess its civic soul, it needs to recapture the central civic responsibilities of public schools…” (Barber, 1998; Civic Literacy section, ¶ 1).