Character Education

These philosophers concerned their work with how to have a good character and become a good person. In order to do this one must understand what is good and how to do good. One must be explicitly taught through mentors, either in school or outside of school, prior to their formation of ideas of what is good and what is not (Nucci, Krettanauer, & Narvaez, 2014).

Ideas that educators should be allowed to work in the role of character education if they themselves proved to be of strong moral character (Nucci, Krettanauer, & Narvaez, 2014).

Character training came from the Bible, both stories and commandments. The teacher was expected to show students consequences for negative behavior and give clear ideas of how the children were supposed to behave in social situations. Educators at this time were not chosen for their education skills but for their moral virtues inside and out of the classroom. People began to look at private education for their children (Nucci, Krettanauer, & Narvaez, 2014).

There was a renewed interest in using teachers as facilitators of character education, they were to be teaching the virtues of society. Those who supported Arnold, believed character was of the upmost importance for men of the time. They were to learn their place in society and in the value of reputation and respect. This was the goal of education. These methods became the greatest influencer in American character education (Nucci, Krettanauer, & Narvaez, 2014).

When Horace was appointed as the secretary of the Board of Education in Massachusetts he set out to more clearly define to role of moral education at the institution level. In this method, students would receive education on moral characteristics through discipline and practice. It was believed that the repetition of tasks would help students to lessen their impulses and be rewarded with encouragement. These lessons were implemented through the use of McGuffey Readers (Fairchild, 2006).

The United States began the League with the purpose of developing a curriculum focused on educating children in the 31 virtues to establish “character” (Nucci, Krettanauer, & Narvaez, 2014).

Beginning in 1917 there were multiple competitions put on by Educational Associations in an effort to raise awareness on the importance of character education in schools. This continued on through 1918, where Milton Fairchild brought to light the importance of character education- the implications of helping a child become a better version of themselves with the guidance of a teacher (Fairchild, 2006).

At this time, the New York State Board went about looking at the social studies curriculum, this was in an effort to analyze the budget and see where improvements could be made. Social studies curriculum was shown to be of value in teaching students moral and ethical values based on the past experiences of others (Watz, 2011).

In this time period many people chose to leave public schools in an effort to help students get away from drugs, poor test scores, low moral values, and violence. The goal of many of the new Christian schools was to get back to the fundamentals of education. This view was in support of providing students with good moral examples of character, through teacher influence and textbook selection (Watz, 2011).

Character Education became a priority once more in public schools. The development of curriculum programs began to emerge. Some character education programs include CharacterCounts!, STAR, and SecondStep (Skinner, 2019). These are implemented and adopted at district and state levels based on the needs and wants of the community.