Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 11, 1995 TAG: 9506090054
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SANDY KLEFFMAN KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
``We are kind, considerate and responsible. We respect others and their property. We are helpful and cooperative. We are organized, polite and careful listeners.''
Those lofty goals are not simply posted on the wall and forgotten. Instead, Chapel makes right and wrong as crucial a part of the curriculum as reading, writing and arithmetic.
Once a common feature in U.S. schools, such lessons have been rare - even taboo - in public classrooms for more than two decades. But today, with violence rising on the nation's campuses and experts complaining about a moral decline in America, a growing number of educators are convinced this hands-off policy has been a mistake. It's time, they say, to reintroduce civic virtues to the nation's public schools.
Already, hundreds of school districts from Maui to Massachusetts embrace ``character education'' as an integral part of the curriculum. Scores of others - including the Fremont Unified School District in the East Bay - are debating whether to join the trend, making it one of the hottest topics in educational circles.
Critics fear such efforts are a smokescreen for those with hidden political or religious agendas who want to foist their views on others. Only parents and religious leaders should impart values to children, they argue.
``You run into the question of whose values are you going to teach?'' says Carol Carter, a Newark, Calif., parent. ``In America, one of our fundamental rights is how we think and feel. We own that. No one can tell us it's right or wrong.''
Yet advocates for character education - who span nearly all segments of the political and religious spectrum from William Bennett, former secretary of education under Ronald Reagan, to the Rev. Jesse Jackson - argue that there are core values that people of all races and faiths agree upon: honesty, respect for others, responsibility, fairness, caring, good citizenship.
These traits are the glue that hold our society together, they maintain, making it possible for a diverse community to live and work in harmony.
No one has proven conclusively that character education works. Critics - who fear such efforts will detract from a school's basic mission - say more analysis is needed before educators make broad-scale changes.
But those who have implemented such programs - and admittedly are biased - say they have seen dramatic results:
The Jefferson Center for Character Education studied 25 Los Angeles schools that began teaching values in 1990. A year later, major disciplinary problems involving fighting, drugs and weapons dropped 25 percent. Minor disciplinary problems plummeted 38 percent. And suspensions were down 16 percent.
The Child Development Project, an Oakland, Calif., group that helps schools create environments in which students learn ethical and social principles as well as academic, concluded that San Ramon children in such a program had greater self-esteem and seemed to enjoy helping their fellow students learn.
In Albuquerque, N.M., test scores went up, attendance improved and incidents of verbal and physical violence dropped one year after a character education program began, says businessman Rick Johnson, a leader of the Albuquerque Character Counts Coalition.
Chapel, who has 18 years' teaching experience, noticed a big change in her students after she began stressing character education in 1991. ``You can go out on the playground, and you see children able to use strategies themselves for working out problems,'' she says. ``They seem to be more considerate of others.''
The character education movement has been galvanized by polls that reveal, as some put it, an alarming ``hole in the moral ozone'' in America.
A 1992 report by the Josephson Institute of Ethics, based on a survey of more than 6,700 young people, found that 61 percent of high school students admitted cheating, and a third acknowledged stealing from a store, during the past year. Of the college students queried, 27 percent said they would lie to get a job, and 21 percent said they would falsify a report to keep their job.
Promoting civic virtues is nothing new for U.S. schools. Indeed, the original mission of the public school system was to teach children to be both smart and good.
But teachers began abandoning that mission during the ``if-it-feels-good, do-it'' era of the 1960s and 1970s, when anti-government and anti-Vietnam War protests rocked the nation. It suddenly became controversial to teach right and wrong, especially in an increasingly multicultural classroom. Many teachers turned instead to ``values clarification.'' Rather than promoting universal virtues, they simply helped students clarify their own beliefs without passing judgment.
``Professors throughout the nation began to say, `We'll teach kids to think but not tell them what to think,' '' says B. David Brooks, president of the Jefferson Center for Character Education. ``But that also carried the message - Don't tell kids what is wrong.''
Today's character education movement is occurring at a time when there is a ``stunning separation of children from adults in this society,'' notes Eric Schaps, president of the Developmental Studies Center in Oakland.
Two centuries ago, children often worked side-by-side with their parents on the family farm and had ample opportunity to learn their values. But today - when the mass media is sending out strong and often conflicting messages about violence and morals - both parents often work away from the home, the extended family has disappeared and children spend large amounts of time in day care.
In Fremont - as in Albuquerque and Duncanville, Texas - educators are considering going beyond character education programs in schools. They envision an old-fashioned, communitywide campaign to make the city a kinder, safer place to live.
For example, businesses might print the list of values on their cash register receipts. Fast-food restaurants might display student essays about morals. Grocery stores might give monthly awards to employees who demonstrate the desired traits.
``When we say one thing and do another - kids see through that in a minute,'' Fremont schools Superintendent Sharon Jones says. ``But when there is alignment between what the parent is doing, the school is doing and the community is doing, it's tough not to learn the lesson.''
by CNB