How Character Education Helps Students Grow

First graders need character education as much as they need to learn to read and count.

by Gloria Rambow Singh

I sat in my kitchen, stunned by what I had just heard on the evening news: A young girl in a neighboring city had been sexually molested by other children under the age of 10. News reports about children and teens violently hurting one another, committing crimes, and sometimes taking lives made me wonder about what might have influenced them to act as they had. I began to consider the impact that I have on the moral development of the lst graders in my classroom. Could I do more to influence how they treated others?

I have always taught my students such concepts as honesty and respect, but usually in response to something negative that has already happened. I wanted to foster their desire to develop positive character traits before I had to deal with negative behavior. Although I believe that families provide the foundation for character development, I also agree with Thomas Lickona that "schools cannot be ethical bystanders at a time when our society is in deep moral trouble" (1991, p. 5). More than 90 percent of respondents to a 1993 poll agreed that schools should be involved in teaching such values as courage, caring, acceptance, and honesty (Elam, Lowell, & Gallup, 1993). Although I knew that my efforts could not cure all the ills of the world, I decided to try to make a difference in my little corner. My two challenges were to find time for character education and to create a program that worked.

Finding Time

After considering my students' needs, my weekly schedule, the standard 1st grade curriculum areas, and the ideas in An Integrated Approach to Character Education (Rusnak, 1998), I realized that I could integrate character education into what I was already teaching.

source:
Educational Leadership
October 2001 | Volume 59 | Number 2
What Should We Teach? Pages 46-49