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Historical foundation of character education in school.

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What type of character education would you implement in your school?

Wow! Character education is, in my opinion, a moral minefield.
The most difficult aspect of character education is deciding what the standard is. In the politically correct, non-judgmental and relative society that we live in I have found that character education, in the school setting, is ineffective at best and counter-productive at its worst.

I believe that we have come to the point in our American society that most people follow a very pragmatic approach to life. Values and ethics are mostly relative the situation you find yourself in and almost any type of behavior can be justified. You can hardly find anyone who is willing to stand up and say that lying is always wrong, that violence is bad or that helping others is more desirable than doing what you want first. If you can find someone to say these things the odds are that they don't actually practice them in their daily lives. The problem with the discrepancy between what people say and what they do is that it is hypocritical and hurts the idea of following certain values. Simply note how society feels about preachers who embezzle money from their congregations or have affairs with their secretaries. Alternatively notice how many cases have been covered recently in the news of teachers who have had inappropriate relationships with their students. If character education is being taught in schools but this type of behavior is going on the message sent to students is that it is a bunch of bull that the school is trying to teach them.

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Solution Summary

This discussion regads the implementation of character education programs in American public schools. What is the rationale for these programs. What standards of right and wrong and what definitions of virtue are used? This discussion focuses on my personal observations acquired after 12 years of teaching at the high school level. Over 900 words of original text.

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What type of character education would you implement in your school?

Wow! Character education is, in my opinion, a moral minefield.

The most difficult aspect of character education is deciding what the standard is. In the politically correct, non-judgmental and relative society that we live in I have found that character education, in the school setting, is ineffective at best and counter-productive at its worst.

I believe that we have come to the point in our American society that most people follow a very pragmatic approach to life. Values and ethics are mostly relative the situation you find yourself in and almost any type of behavior can be justified. You can hardly find anyone who is willing to stand up and say that lying is always wrong, that violence is bad or that helping others is more desirable than doing what you want first. If you can find someone to say these things the odds are that they don't actually practice them in their daily lives. The problem with the discrepancy between what people say and what they do is that it is hypocritical and hurts the idea of following certain values. Simply note how society feels about preachers who embezzle money from their congregations or have affairs with their secretaries. Alternatively notice how many cases have been covered recently in the news of teachers who have had inappropriate ...

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