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- Character education: review,
- Character education: review,
- Character education: a critical
1970s
In the 1970s a renewed interest in moral education occurred evidenced by a shift away from the focus of earlier decades on assessing behavior to researchers attempting to evaluate the quality of students’ thinking (Lickona, 1991b). Values clarification and moral reasoning, conceived in the sixties, became popularized in the seventies Krajewski and Bailey (1999) noted that, “The 1970s experimented with moral dilemmas and values clarification” (p. 33), and constituted the two dominant approaches for character education in the 1970s. Both with individualistic orientations reflective of the 1970s, Kohlberg’s moral dilemma discussions focused on an individual’s development of moral reasoning, and values clarification centered on an individual’s clarification of personal values that are acted upon consistently (Lickona, 1991b). Values clarification, started by Raths and colleagues in the sixties, failed to distinguish between free choice-based personal preferences and obligatory moral values. Teachers were to maintain a value neutral and passive stance in order to promote the idea that a distinction between right and wrong did not exist (Smith, 1989). With nothing right or wrong, critics claimed that values clarification led to moral relativism. Students were urged to clarify their personal values, and then act on those values in a consistent manner.
Kohlberg focused on moral reasoning, “which is necessary but not sufficient for good character, and underestimated the school’s role as a moral socializer” (Smith&Blasé, 1988, p. 10). Students participated in moral dilemma discussions that were designed to develop students’ moral reasoning skills. By synthesis, moral reasoning and values clarification could not and did not serve the purposes of character educators as the original proponents had planned, and according to Lasley (1997), the schools in the 1960s and 1970s assumed a value neutral stance which precipitated the need for character education in the subsequent decades of the eighties and beyond.
1980s
The decade of the eighties “witnessed the return of the school’s role in developing character” (Krajewski&Bailey, 1999, p. 33). Goals for schools in part included interpersonal understandings, citizenship, and moral and ethical character (Goodlad, 1984). The 1980s witnessed schools teaching students traditional values using new methods (Smith, 1989). Late in the decade, leaders from President Reagan to New York’s governor, Cuomo, were calling for schools to pay more attention to students’ moral development (Smith, 1989). Regarding program content, some schools in order to avoid criticisms from the extreme left or the extreme right targeted character education efforts towards determining universal values, and soliciting community-wide participation for a consensus in approaches to enact. Smith (1989) reflected the 80s decade by noting that the period was a renaissance of moral education which sought to develop both a child’s scholastic aptitude and the full flowering of their humanity. Educators understood that though every child could not be smart, every child had the potential to be good!
Source:
OpenStax, Character education: review, analysis, and relevance to educational leadership. OpenStax CNX. Sep 24, 2009 Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col11119/1.1
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