Character counts across the curriculum, yet many teachers are saying, “It counts, but how do you find time to teach it?” The curriculum is just too full; they are just too busy; and it’s a challenge to find time for character education. They want to marginalize character.
I personally believe character education is vital to society, and should have priority in the curriculum. It should have its own time slot. If, in order to do that, we must sacrifice physical education, art, music, or any of a myriad of things outside the basics, I think we should do so. Society, without repair of its moral foundations, will soon topple – and the academic courses we believe to be so important will not stop that fall.
Merging character into the academics, i.e., integrating character into the current curriculum, is “a part” of character education, I believe. It is “a part” of total immersion, training for which is found in the free e-course, Character Education 101. It is essential that character education permeate the teaching day, both at home and at school. It is important that our young people understand that character is not something you put on and take off, like a coat, but something that you wear from morning until night. That concept can only be conveyed as we integrate character into math; integrate character into science; and integrate character into language arts as well as social studies.
Merging character into other disciplines has a danger, however. We face the danger of “marginalizing character education”. We run the risk of teaching, through actions, that character is not important enough to merit its own slot in the curriculum. When we say, “We’re too pressured to spend specific time teaching character so let’s integrate it into other courses,” we are really saying that character is not vitally necessary to our students. “We will weave it into mathematics class” – but that class is already coming under pressure to produce greater results. “We will integrate it into science class” – but science, too, has been singled out as a course that needs to receive more attention.
Merging character into the current curriculum is not the best way to impart character education, contrary to what some are saying. Character deserves, and must have its own full, specific time in the curriculum, apart from every other discipline. Students must have a regular, frequent, high quality class that focuses solely on character. After they have that – after character education is assigned a regular time with no intrusions, it is time to access the additional value that comes from total immersion, as taught in Character Education 101. We must teach character separately, and we must integrate character. Both are necessary.
Many of us rejoiced when character education was written into the curriculum. We hoped the regular teaching of strong moral principles would result in a stronger society. Soon, however, we found that educators complained about the addition, and tried to push it to the edges of the curriculum. Now, the cry of “too much pressure” is pushing character education completely out of its place in the curriculum. Educators are trying to “cop-out” of teaching character by asking to integrate it into other subjects – subjects that allow little time for it. They know, and you should, too, that character education will soon be out of the classroom.
Parents and educators who really care about saving our society should insist that character education be taught regularly, with a good character education program. Character education should never be marginalized!
That’s the view from my chair. What’s your view?