# Educating for Character  ## Metadata - Author: [[Thomas Lickona]] - Full Title: Educating for Character - Category: #books [[EDUC 7620]] ## Highlights ###### ID 676352490 > Pluralism produced paralysis; schools for the most part ended up trying to stay officially neutral on the subject of values. ([Location 149](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=149)) - Note: Staying neutral is still taking a side. ###### ID 676352491 > A Newsweek story titled “So Long Wonder Years” reports the findings of a new Carnegie Corporation study: One quarter of all junior high school students are involved in some combination of smoking, drinking, drug use, and sex; fully half are involved in at least one of these activities.7 ([Location 169](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=169)) - Note: Not surprised ###### ID 676352492 > The typical elementary school child spends 30 hours a week in front of the television set. ([Location 174](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=174)) - Note: Dating himself and this book, which was written whe the iphone was still a toddler. Now i would prefer kids were just spending 30 hours a week on broadcast TV, rather than 100 hours on the unfiltered internet ###### ID 676352493 > Realizing that smart and good are not the same, wise societies since the time of Plato have made moral education a deliberate aim of schooling. They have educated for character as well as intellect, decency as well as literacy, virtue as well as knowledge. They have tried to form citizens who will use their intelligence to benefit others as well as themselves, who will try to build a better world. ([Location 201](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=201)) ###### ID 676352494 > That same age, of course, was far from perfectly virtuous. Economic exploitation and racial, ethnic, and sexual discrimination were well-entrenched parts of society—and issues not likely to be addressed in the McGuffey Reader. But moral education, however limited, was very much a part of the public school agenda. ([Location 219](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=219)) - Note: This is the challenge now as well. There are lots of people calling evil good and calling good evil. ###### ID 676352495 > When it comes to right and wrong, many people began to think, “It’s all relative to your point of view.” ([Location 226](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=226)) - Note: I believ that, given enough time, we will all come to believe essentially the same thing, those universal core values. But i do believe that everyone has to tale their own path to get there. ###### ID 676352496 > “Logical positivism” introduced a fundamental distinction between “fact” and “value.” It held that the only real facts or truths were ones that could be scientifically demonstrated (e.g., “A steel ball when dropped will fall to the ground”). ([Location 239](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=239)) - Note: Gad Saad strongly and emphatically falls in this camp. He posits the only way of knowing is by empiricism. Something can ONLY be true if proven by science. [[the parasitic Mind]]. For the arguments he is making, that approach makes sense. I'd alter that to say the only thing you can prove to others is by empiricism, but there are many ways of knowing for oneself. As Fried (2024) notes, when it comes down to it, everything is a judgment call. ###### ID 676352497 > A value judgment was automatically dismissed as “just your personal opinion” rather than as a rational, objective claim about what’s good or bad, better or worse. ([Location 245](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=245)) - Note: Were these types of statements coming from the right or the left? ###### ID 676352498 > 16 ([Location 260](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=260)) - Note: This is a powerful concern. This is where extremism comes in and those teachers who are then pushing their own values instead of them pushing universal values. [[frederick Lane]] ###### ID 676352499 > Personalism celebrated the worth, dignity, and autonomy of the individual person, including the subjective self or inner life of the person. It emphasized rights more than responsibility, freedom more than commitment. It led people to focus on expressing and fulfilling themselves as free individuals rather than on fulfilling their obligations as members of groups such as family, church, community, or country.17 ([Location 266](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=266)) ###### ID 676352500 > the teacher’s job was to help students learn how to “clarify” their own values. ([Location 286](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=286)) - Note: There is nothing new under the sun. I’ve been guilty of saying exactly this statement. ###### ID 676352501 > Values clarification discussions made no distinction between what you might want to do (such as shoplift) and what you ought to do (respect the property rights of others). ([Location 316](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=316)) ###### ID 676352502 > By the late 1970s, the media reported that more than a hundred American companies had admitted to paying large sums to buy special treatment from U.S. politicians and foreign government officials. The companies’ justification: Everyone was doing it. ([Location 331](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=331)) - Note: Now it is legal and called Lobbying. ###### ID 676352503 > The moral education thing bothers me because I feel as if I’m doing it alone. Many parents seem to enjoy their rights—having a child—but no longer seem to want the responsibilities. I get the feeling, who’s helping me here? ([Location 575](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=575)) - Note: This attitude is pervasive in education, that the parents don’t want the responsibility of raising kids. I’ve never met a parent who doesn’t want ethical, good kids. Even the title of this chapter screams that “we’re doing it all on our own.” That’s a load of baloney. Families are doing the best they have the ability to do. ###### ID 676352504 > The way a school is run, For Character believes, is the most important kind of character education it provides. ([Location 594](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=594)) - Note: Why modeling is so important. ###### ID 676352505 > photo displays in the corridors, ([Location 677](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=677)) - Note: I would love to see candid photos of students exhibiting the character and values we are trying to teach them. No posing, in fact, it’s better if the kids don’t know they are being photographed. The HeGetsUs.com advertisement from the Super Bowl this week was powerful. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94BqlDQ-Ppo ###### ID 676352506 > What does the formal research show? Most of the current efforts in values education have not been subjected to a controlled research evaluation. But the empirical studies that have been done are promising.18 ([Location 685](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=685)) - Note: Is it even ethical to do controlled research on character education? [[2023 The Year That the Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) Paradigm Was Weaponized Against Vaccines and Public Health]]. Gorski (2024) suggests that doing Randomized Clinical Trials on people where we know there is something good for them already. ###### ID 676352507 > Common sense tells us that the family is the primary moral educator of the child. Parents are their children’s first moral teachers. They are also the most enduring influence: Children change teachers every year but typically have at least one of the same parents all through their growing years. ([Location 719](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=719)) - Note: You can’t out-teach the culture in the home. A child may choose to abandon their culture, but you won’t ever out teach it. ###### ID 676352508 > The parents who are most effective, the research indicates, are “authoritative”—requiring obedience from their children but providing clear reasons for their expectations, so that children eventually internalize the moral rationale and act responsibly on their own. ([Location 729](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=729)) ###### ID 676352509 > Eighth-graders who are relatively mature in their moral reasoning rate their fathers as more affectionate and more involved with them than do eighth-graders who are immature in their moral reasoning.24 ([Location 734](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=734)) ###### ID 676352510 > One classic study looked at several thousand junior and senior high school teenagers. It found that the closer the mother’s supervision of the child, the better the communication with his or her father, and the greater the affection between child and both parents, the less the likelihood of juvenile delinquency.26 ([Location 738](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=738)) ###### ID 676352511 > Our divorce rate, which has more than doubled since 1960,27 is the highest in the world. About 60 percent of children whose parents break up will spend the rest of their childhood in a single-parent home.28 ([Location 744](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=744)) - Note: More up-to-date information from BGSU indicates that divorce is at an all-time low. https://www.bgsu.edu/ncfmr/resources/data/family-profiles/loo-divorce-rate-US-geographic-variation-2022-fp-23-24.html#:~:text=After+reaching+a+40%2Dyear,increase+from+2021+to+2022. ###### ID 676352512 > more than half of all children under 18 have a mother who works outside the home, often out of economic necessity. Nearly half of all mothers of 1-year-olds are now in the labor force. ([Location 750](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=750)) - Note: Interesting information from PEW research: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2015/11/04/raising-kids-and-running-a-household-how-working-parents-share-the-load/ ###### ID 676352513 > Dr. Judith Wallerstein, ([Location 757](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=757)) ###### ID 676352514 > In the United States there are now more than 8 million latchkey children.32 ([Location 779](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=779)) - Note: According to this site, there is now 7.7 million latchkey children: https://www.safewise.com/news/unlocking-independence-safely-a-guide-for-parents-of-latchkey-kids/#:~:text=Today+there+are+around+7.7,double+the+count+in+2000.&text=One+in+five+children+come+home+to+an+empty+house+after+school. ###### ID 676352515 > When families don’t meet the basic physical and emotional needs of children, children are not prepared to function in school mentally or morally. Increasingly, children come to school without breakfast, without enough sleep, without their homework done, and without the feeling that anybody really cares about them. Learning difficulties and behavior problems are often the result. ([Location 809](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=809)) - Note: This is tragic. But for how many kids is this the daily reality? And how much of that is driven by the fact that our schools provide so much? I don’t know the answer to these questions, but I suspect Lickona doesn’t either, else he would have cited actual studies instead of anecdotes. ###### ID 676352516 > many schools are already recruiting parents as partners in moral education. ([Location 837](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=837)) - Note: This rubs me the wrong way. Parents should be recruiting schools as partners, first. Why does it rub me the wrong way? Because it gives the impression that it is the school’s responsibility and the parents must be brought in to support it, when the reality is just the opposite. It is the family responsibility, and the state supports the family in their development of moral children. ###### ID 676352517 > it doesn’t take everybody to make an idea work; it takes only a critical mass. Committed schools are already showing that there are many parents willing to join forces to help children grow into good and decent people. ([Location 859](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=859)) - Note: Critical mass. ## New highlights added February 26, 2024 at 7:06 PM ###### ID 684617914 > Teachers have the power to affect the values and character of the young in at least three ways: Teachers can serve as effective caregivers—loving ([Location 1471](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=1471)) ###### ID 684617915 > Teachers can serve as models—ethical ([Location 1474](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=1474)) ###### ID 684617916 > Teachers can serve as ethical mentors—providing moral instruction and guidance through explanation, classroom discussion, storytelling, personal encouragement, and corrective feedback when students hurt others or themselves. ([Location 1477](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=1477)) ###### ID 684617917 > Other teachers err through neglect. They simply don’t see themselves as moral educators. Consequently, they don’t take time to try to foster moral values through their interactions with the whole class or with individual students. ([Location 1481](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=1481)) - Note: Another aspect of this that I see is that some teachers feel a need to convince students of their worldview, rather than teach character or other values. One such teacher thought it was his duty in 2016 to make sure that all students knew that voting for Donald Trump was wrong so when a student wore a Donald Trump hat to school this teacher ripped the hat off of the student and told him to put that crap in his locker or that he could pick it up after school, this was not effective way to build a relationship with a student, nor was it an effective way to convince the student that the teacher was right it backfired on all fronts ###### ID 684617918 > School counselors send Bill Rose the students with a long history of school failure. ([Location 1493](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=1493)) - Note: Why isn’t Mr. Rose burnt out? Because he’s seeing these challenging students and situations as fuel for the work he really cares about. When we resent the work, burnout quickly follows. When we sacrifice for the suffering, it is a willful sacrifice and not painful. ###### ID 684617919 > Small incidents like these make up the moral life of the classroom. By providing a class forum for Stephen’s concern, teacher Mahoney showed respect for his feelings as well as for the life of the toad. Valuing children’s concerns in this way contributes importantly to a relationship of mutual respect between teacher and students. ([Location 1535](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=1535)) - Note: These are also the incidents that students and staff will remember for years to come, regardless of what else they may or may not learn in class. ###### ID 684617920 > It’s frequently said that “values are caught, not taught.” That’s a half-truth. The whole truth is that values are caught (through good example) and taught (through direct explanation). ([Location 1571](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=1571)) ###### ID 684617921 > In the classroom as in the family, adults have their greatest moral impact when they provide, in the context of a caring relationship, both a good example and reasoned advocacy of good values.8 ([Location 1574](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=1574)) ###### ID 684617922 > Whether or not I did it is irrelevant to whether it’s right or wrong. Like most people, I made my share of mistakes when I was young. You should think carefully about what’s right—what’s respectful of yourself and others—and base your behavior on that. ([Location 1604](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=1604)) - Note: I disagree with Lickona on this piece of advice on how to respond when a students asks the teacher if he has cheated before.m. An educator should feel comfortable disclosing past transgressions and be ok with it. They know better than someone else the real, deeper toll of cheating. They may have had to live with that sick inner feeling of regret and remorse, even if they got away with it. As I’ve shared my own personal struggles with kids and what I learned from the same mistakes they are making it also gives them hope that they too can overcome it eventually. ###### ID 684617923 > Stories, read or told, have always been among the favorite teaching instruments of the world’s great moral educators. Stories teach by attraction rather than compulsion; they invite rather than impose.10 They capture the imagination and touch the heart. All of us have experienced the power of a good story to stir strong feelings. ([Location 1642](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=1642)) ###### ID 684617924 > (For psychological theory pointing to the human hunger for morally compelling narratives, see the article “The Use of Stories in Moral Development” by New York University’s Paul Vitz in the June 1990 American Psychologist.) ([Location 1645](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=1645)) ###### ID 684617925 > ‘How are you going to handle that? Think about it. You have a warning that Sean Marsee didn’t have.’ “I stopped it there. I didn’t want to turn it into a lecture; I wanted them to think. That was last Friday. I ([Location 1718](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=1718)) - Note: Having restraint and knowing when to stop lecturing and give the kids time to learn their own lesson is valuable. Stories are so powerful because they create a shared experience which deepens your relationship and they can be understood by everyone even when they are at different levels. ###### ID 684617926 > Dr. Harvey Greenberg, professor of adolescent psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, says that young people today “face a garbage culture with no values to latch on to, and so they’re preoccupied with themselves. Kids need mentors. Teachers used to do this, but they do it less now because they’re angry or just worn down.”12 ([Location 1734](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=1734)) - Note: Every child needs a guide, a mentor, a teacher, and parents. Those roles are often interchangeable, but they need to identify those people who can serve that role. [[PTMG]] [[PaTeMeGu]] ###### ID 684617927 > With difficult children, a personal relationship between teacher and child can make all the difference in the teacher’s ability to have a positive influence. ([Location 1759](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=1759)) - Note: You’re going to be spending time with them anyway, might as well front load it and make it more worthwhile use of both your time! ###### ID 684617928 > In pointing out all the ways teachers can have moral influence on students, I want to recognize that there are limits on what a teacher can do. Without help from the home, one teacher may not be able to turn around the growing number of difficult or disturbed children with whom a teacher has to deal. ([Location 1814](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=1814)) ###### ID 684617929 > For an example of research supporting the role of direct cognitive instruction in forming the conscience of children as young as two, see Carolyn Zahn-Waxler et al., “Childrearing and Children’s Prosocial Orientations Toward Victims of Distress,” Child Development 50 (1979), pp. 319-30. For evidence of the effectiveness of moral advocacy with teenagers, see Dobert and Nunner-Winkler (complete citation in note in Chapter 2). ([Location 9099](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=9099)) ## New highlights added March 19, 2024 at 12:21 PM ###### ID 695065143 > His students talk of how the class is “a family,” how they don’t come late, how they have straightened themselves out and gotten their grades up, and how they work hard for Mr. Rose because he cares about them and they don’t want to let him down. They are learning about the meaning of respect and love by experiencing them firsthand. ([Location 1510](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=1510)) - Note: Contrast with Gottfredson (2022) who states that a faily is the most basic level representing mind 1.0, we are a team represents mind 2.0, and we add value to each other is mind 3.0. This alternative perspective shows that what we think we value highly is, according to Gottfredson, merely the ticket to enter the game, and we can be so much better. ## New highlights added April 3, 2024 at 11:59 AM ###### ID 701835954 > The class meeting provides an experience in democracy, making students full partners in creating the best possible classroom. ([Location 2857](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=2857)) - Note: Experience with Twitter backfiring ## New highlights added April 16, 2024 at 12:19 PM ###### ID 707595591 > “It took them two months to make this really work,” the teacher says, “but they finally got it together. What’s more, their test scores went up.” ([Location 3793](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=3793)) - Note: It does take time,b it it is worth it to take the time to learn. However, I’d like it more if we could value character education teaching strategies like cooperative learning for the value it gives, not for how it helps kids increase their test scores. ###### ID 707595592 ^07dc2b > Japan presents an interesting study in contrast. There is, on the one hand, intense competition: Japanese children take tests to compete for entrance into the best junior high schools; later they take more competitive tests to get into the best high schools; then they compete again for the relatively few spots in the most prestigious colleges and universities. One negative effect of all this competitive pressure has been a high youth suicide rate (now declining as it becomes more socially acceptable to go to trade schools instead of universities). But the intense competition never turns into the step-on-the-other-guy individualism we see in our own society, where, for example, medical students will sabotage each other’s lab work in the drive for top grades. A cooperative spirit is what is most salient about Japanese people. I asked two Japanese graduate students about this seeming cultural contradiction. “We don’t like to hurt people,” one explained. The other elaborated: “If we try hard to get into the best university, that’s a personal thing. We don’t really see ourselves as competing with each other. We are just trying to do our best.” And, they pointed out, cooperative group work is very common in both elementary and junior high schools. In junior high, for example, students are in groups of five to six; they study all their subjects in groups. ([Location 3856](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=3856)) - Note: Japanese culture ###### ID 707595593 > 8. Whole-class projects. A teacher also does well to tap the power of whole-class projects to generate a pervasive spirit of cooperation. ([Location 4021](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=4021)) - Note: See synergy. Benefits without worrying about testing. ###### ID 707595594 > The literature on moral education typically treats moral learning and academic learning as separate spheres. But moral education includes academic work, because work has moral importance. What gives work moral meaning? ([Location 4303](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=4303)) ###### ID 707595595 > the first step for schools is to treat work as having moral importance and the work of learning as a moral activity that contributes to character development. The second step is to realize that schools are engaging not only in bad education but also in bad moral education when, for whatever reason, students are not doing the work of learning. ([Location 4340](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=4340)) ###### ID 707595596 > A concern for excellence—what Syracuse University professor Thomas Green calls “the conscience of craft.” Let me elaborate on this last objective. The conscience of craft, Green says, calls on us to do our jobs well, whatever they may be. To have developed the conscience of craft is to have acquired the capacity to feel satisfaction at a job well done—and to be ashamed of slovenly work. The conscience of craft motivates a mechanic to repair a car not only to our satisfaction but also to his own. ([Location 4353](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=4353)) - Note: See also Japanese comment from twitter ###### ID 707595597 > One high school English teacher says that on the first day of class, he hands out a page with two columns: “My Responsibilities as the Teacher” and “Your Responsibilities as the Student.” He comments: The teacher responsibilities list has up to 20 items on it. The student list is much shorter. When they see all I’m doing as the teacher, what I’m asking them to do doesn’t seem so bad. ([Location 4397](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=4397)) - Note: This is the philosophy that Ron Clark has with this 55 rules for his classroom. I believe here is a way to have high expectations without so many rules, as when there are that many rules, they all become meaningless. ###### ID 707595598 > Another way to develop a commitment to standards is to give students the opportunity to develop real expertise in a given subject or skill. But most schools, caught up in the hundred-yard pedagogical dash, rush to “cover” the required curriculum. If students never have the experience of taking hold of a subject and probing it deeply, says educator Jerome Bruner, they never know the structure of a field of knowledge or the rewards of in-depth learning. And they don’t develop the intellectual discipline needed to produce new knowledge. ([Location 4426](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=4426)) - Note: This is still a plague on education today. It has not gone away. ###### ID 707595599 > When students achieve real expertise in one area, competence becomes part of their self-image and they are more motivated to do quality work in other areas as well. Developing expertise through in-depth learning is one more way to translate high teacher expectations into children’s educational experience. And one thing is clear from the research: Teachers who communicate high expectations to all their students obtain better academic performance than teachers who communicate low expectations.15 ([Location 4443](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B002SVQD5A&location=4443)) - Note: It’s as if in education we can’t get away from the idea of achievement for achievements’s sake. It’s as if we can’t think about anything but achievement. When, the whole point of this book has been to say that we should be education for character. I’m going to go so far as to say that I don’t care about grades, test scores, or achievement because it truly doesn’t matter. It’ll come, or it won’t. It truly doesn’t matter, but we can’t help but claim that it does.