Citizens of Character: New Directions in Character and Values Education

By Arthur James

The contributors discuss why character education is considered valuable, what character education is taken to mean, and identify and test hypotheses about various influences (schools, families, communities, employers) on the development of character through reporting on our research in UK schools, universities and businesses.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Imprint Academic
• Release date: Oct 2, 2013
• ISBN: 9781845406240

Arthur James

Dr. R. Arthur James is Associate Professor and head of the department of Marine Sciences, Bharathidasan University. He obtained his bachelor and master degree in geology from V.O.C. College, Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai, and PhD in Environmental Sciences, from Institute for Ocean Management, Anna University, Chennai. His research interests are land ocean interaction, coastal zone management and geo-microbiology. He has published 47 SCI articles in national and international journals. He was the recipient of Young Scientist award from DST, Young Investigator award from DBT, Dongsha research award from Taiwan ROC. He reviewed about forty manuscript from Elsevier, Springer journals. He serves as Associate Editor in Frontiers in Marine science (Marine pollution) journal since 2013.

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Contributors

James Arthur is Professor of Education and Civic Engagement at the University of Birmingham.

David Carr is Professor of Education at University of Edinburgh.

Ray Godfrey was Reader in Educational Statistics at Canterbury Christ Church University.

Ben Gray is a Senior Research Fellow at Canterbury Christ Church University.

Robert Harding has worked in inner city schools and colleges since 1997 and as a support worker for excluded an ‘at-risk’ pupils.

Tom Harrison is a director of the Learning for Life project and a Citizenship tutor at the University of Leicester.

Hsing-Chiung Lin is a research fellow at Canterbury Christ Church University.

David Lorimer is a writer, lecturer and editor and is also the programme director of the Scientific and Medical Network.

Andrew Peterson is Senior Lecturer in Postgraduate Initial Teacher Education at Canterbury Christ Church University.

Kenneth Wilson is Visiting Fellow of the University of Chichester and Senior Research Fellow of Christ Church University, Canterbury.

Foreword

There is a fresh urgency about education. The worst recession since the Second World War has cut through many lazy assumptionsone of which was that resources for education would grow irreversibly. That they will not - and, indeed, that for a time they will contract - forces us to focus on what is most needed, by whom and for what purpose.

In his preface, John Haldane argues that ‘education is formation’. So it is. Yet if education is a process, a dialogue, creation for both teacher and taught, what is the most necessary result? Surely one necessary result is the one least easy to mark or grade. It is that each person is not only technically qualified to deal with life but has the values that will sustain them and enable them to contribute to the lives of others.

This volume raises questions and offers answers that are pertinent, timely and relevant.

The Lord Watson of Richmond CBE

Chairman of ‘Learning for Life’

High Steward of Cambridge University

Preface

Educational theory has a liability to lurch from one term to another. At times the essence is said to lie in processes, at other times in aims and objectives; then in outcomes; then we are referred back to principles, foundations and cores. There is some irony, and cause for concern, in the fact that those who should need to be more or less certain of the business in order to practice it, seem to ricochet between one and other perspective.

The truth is that education is a complex phenomenon; but at its heart is a process of formation. We might speak of handing on truths, of inculcating moral and intellectual habits, of stimulating curiosity, or of preparing for life or work, or indeed for unemployment; but at a more fundamental level these all amount to the same thing: shaping and forming.

Here, of course ‘shaping’ and ‘forming’ are used metaphorically and their relevant correlate is ‘matter’ of some kind or another (this again being understood metaphorically). The potter shapes the clay, the sculptor shapes the stone, the composer shapes the melody, the cook forms the raw ingredients into a dish, and the steward forms the crowd into a line. Generalising from these activities and reapplying the abstract idea of forming to the context of education this implies a specific logical relationship between teacher and pupil.

How best to characterise this? In his witty but wise book What is Wrong with the World (the author had a question mark in the typescript, but the publisher preferred the idea of a denunciation [!] to that of an enquiry [?]) G.K. Chesterton made the good point that for all that some educators went on about how education, or as they would prefer to say ‘true’ or ‘genuine’ education is not a matter of instruction or direction, but rather one of elicitation, very little of structure or definite content originates within the learner. It is apt to quote him, if only briefly, since there is a distinctive potency in the way in which he alerts us to the truth of the matter:

I think it would be about as sane to say that the baby’s milk comes from the baby as to say that the baby’s educational merits do. There is, indeed, in each living creature a collection of forces and functions; but education means producing these in particular shapes and training them to particular purposes, or it means nothing at all.

G.K. Chesterton, What’s Wrong with the World

(London: Cassell, 1908).

That was written a century ago, but still educators talk as if their task was simply to facilitate the birth of one skill after another. Part of the reason for this way of talking about education as a kind of midwifery is that it conforms to an imagined liberal ideal of non-interference, non-prescriptivity, and non-judgementalism. Apart from the fact that this rather undermines the idea of teaching, however, it is in any case a fantasy, as reflection on the practice of teaching language, or mathematics, or geography, or indeed art or quickly reminds us.

Education is formation. One might even say that it is formation under the constraint of authority, for it cannot, in general, be a question whether the teacher or the pupil is better placed to judge what the pupil ought to do. This is not an empirical claim but a conceptual or logical one: it is internal to the nature of teaching that, other things being equal, teacher knows best. But what if the teacher is a bad one? Well, up to a point inadequacy does not undermine authority; but if it is extensive enough then we have to say that this is no longer an educational setting, and no teaching is going on; but only that one person has taken or been given charge of another.

A careless reading of Chesterton might take from it a picture of two opposing possibilities: either the teacher is conceived of as impressing ideas upon a passive mind and psyche, or else he or she is thought only to aid the expression of an already active nature and consciousness. This, however, overlooks another possibility, and it is that possibility which Chesterton has in mind when he writes

‘There is, indeed, in each living creature a collection of forces and functions; but education means producing these in particular shapes and training them to particular purposes’.

In antiquity, Plato puzzled as to how teaching was possible. For either the pupil already understands the point or he does not, but if he does then he cannot be taught it, and if he does not then he cannot begin to grasp it. Either way education, as teaching, is impossible. This, of course, is meant as an instructive paradox. The conclusion is not that teaching is impossible but rather that there is some error in the way in which we conceive its nature. So what is the resolution? In part it is reached by seeing that knowledge is not an all or nothing condition. Learning presupposes some degree of prior knowledge but builds upon and extends it. But if we are to avoid a regress then we shall have to say that, antecedent to any learning, there is already something there, if not actual knowledge then at least a real potential.

This is what Chesterton has in mind when he writes of there being in ‘each living creature a collection of forces and functions’. We come into the world not as passive matter or as mere living bodies but as animals possessed of sensory powers and appetites, pre-disposed to move towards or to withdraw from certain features of our physical and human environment. Without this human education would be impossible but while it conditions the forms of possible instruction and development it does not altogether determine them.

This is the ground of the so-called ‘open-question’ argument against a deterministic naturalism that asserts that since we do x therefore we should do x. The counter is that as conscious, reflective animals we are able to consider our basic empirical dispositions and to ask of what we do whether we ought to do it. If education is not simply waiting to see what emerges and then applauding it, neither is it a matter of brute training, i.e., inducing certain behavioural responses. Rather its aim is to take certain natural powers and direct them towards their proper objects. Just as sight is for the sake of visual discernment so thought is for the sake of conception and judgement and these activities are answerable to norms of accuracy, coherence, intelligibility and truth. Imagination has its own role, but thinking that is not ultimately directed towards true judgement is just fantasy, and indeed ultimately is a feature of insanity.

As with cognition, so with emotion, deliberation and action. These powers are intrinsically related to certain norms or goods, and it is the business of the educator to develop them in the direction of these. That process is a bit like teaching someone to ride a bike. One may say certain things, and do certain things, teaching by direction and example, and lending support and a shove but at the end of the day the pupil has to push away himself, and once the skill is acquired the teacher must be reconciled to the fact that where the empowered cyclist goes is up to him.

Saying that, if the teaching has been conducted in a trust-inducing way then it is very likely that as well as acquiring the skill of locomotion the pupil or student will take seriously the teacher’s recommendations as to where it might be worth traveling. So it is with education more generally, which brings us to the point that it matters what sort of person the teacher is, what their values are and how authentically they live by them and serve as examples to others.

All of this is what is at issue in the business of education, and most it is under discussion in one way or another in the following set of essays. Their focus is on the issue of character, particularly as this relates to the part that individuals come to play as citizens. In his introduction James Arthur writes that ‘All dimensions of education are essential if pupils and young people are to assume their role in society equipped with the personal qualities, dispositions, attitudes, values and virtues to take responsibility for themselves and to contribute to the common good’. This is true, but in contemplating it one immediately becomes aware of how much it encompasses and how challenging is the task of identifying the particular details of these features and helping to cultivate them.

Philosophy is central to the analytical phase of that task but in order to proceed beyond the assembly of logical points it needs to be informed of facts: facts of psychology, of development, of circumstance, and so on. The essays in this volume provide a great deal of information about the beliefs and attitudes of children and young people in various stages of education, and also offer helpful

Preface xv

reflections upon these facts. This is precisely the sort of thing that is necessary if a coherent and robust account of moral and social character is to be developed adequate to inform educational practice, particularly in its effort to assist rising generations enter the social world as citizens affirming their own freedom and equality and recognising and upholding that of others.

John Haldane

St Andrews

Introduction

The formation of character could be said to be the aim that all general education has historically set out to achieve. It is an aim that has often not been explicitly stated, instead it has simply been assumed. This has been the prevailing story of British education policy on character building in schools over the last ten years. Currently, in Britain, it is the government that is advocating the teaching of virtues in schools and it is the government that is seeking policies to build the character of the young, particularly through citizenship education. However, it does so largely on a philosophy that fails to provide a substantive explanation of what the basis of this citizenship or character education is. There is no consensus in schools of which virtues should be taught or how they should be taught. Government policy on ‘education with character’ appears fragmented.

Nevertheless, character is clearly a topic that is gaining significance in British politics. Educationalists and politicians across the political spectrum are reviving ‘character-talk’ as they believe it has contemporary relevance. Anyone who is interested in creating a successful liberal society is interested in character, whether they admit it or not. Good societies need good people who are also good citizens, and it is why DEMOS, the influential think tank, established an enquiry into character in January 2010, recognising its increasing importance. Education is about active character development, not just about the acquisition of academic and social skills. It is ultimately about the kind of person a student becomes and wants to become. Nevertheless, the tradition of virtue language has been eroded in schools, and as a result an impoverished discourse on character has contributed to a lack of coherence in the rationale of the educational system. There is also a lack of clarity in the moral objectives that schools set themselves, especially in the area of personal responsibility. Practice in this area is rarely evaluated or researched. Government initiatives to enhance character education remain patchy, narrowly focused and marginal rather than brought into mainstream provision. There is also little support or training in this area for teachers.

Schools are subject to an understandable pressure to provide the economy with functionally competent persons equipped to meet the increasingly competitive demands of employment. In doing so schools may ignore or take for granted another important dimension of education - the encouragement into critical self-consciousness of the process by which a student learns to become aware of himself or herself as a responsible person. All dimensions of education are essential if pupils and young people are to assume their role in society equipped with the personal qualities, dispositions, attitudes, values and virtues to take responsibility for themselves and to contribute to the common good. Good habits encouraged in the process of education underpin the ability and inclination to engage in the necessary business of further lifelong personal development and learning. An individual pupil’s values will develop as a result of a combination of personal and social interaction with parents, carers, siblings, other relatives, neighbours, teachers and friends: each of whom may espouse or model certain values and qualities of character. The pupil’s values are also nurtured and developed within the home, as well as outside it in settings such as their school and other social environments.

Between 2006 and 2010 six separate, but linked, empirical studies were conducted in the UK funded by the John Templeton Foundation and included:

a character perspective in the early years;

consistency in values in the transition from primary to secondary school;

the values and character dispositions of 14-16 year olds; (d) the formation of virtues and dispositions in the 16-19 age range;

values and character in higher education and employmen; and

the value perspectives of young people in Church of England Schools.

The research focused on the age range 3-25 years, which makes the scope and the approach unique. The project also focused on aspects of curriculum development and on developing a values programme for schools. This volume is not intended as the findings of the individual research reports, but rather a collection of essays which reflect on the idea of character from the perspective of individual members of the research team. Each member of the project has contributed a chapter about what they considered important in this research project. The views expressed are entirely those of each individual contributor and do not represent the project as a whole.

Acknowledgements

My thanks go to all the contributors to this volume. I would like to thank especially David Lorimer for proof reading and suggesting changes to the text of many of these chapters. His assistance in helping prepare this text for publication is much appreciated. I would also like to thank Aidan Thompson for formatting the chapters.

Part of my own chapter was first published in the British Journal of Educational Studies in 2005 Vol. 53, No. 3, pp. 239-254.

I would particularly like to thank Professor John Haldane for contributing the Preface.

James Arthur

Character, Reason and Emotion in the Education of Moral Virtues

Character and virtue

The concept of character in latter day theorising about moral education has had a somewhat chequered history. Indeed, notwithstanding its significance in much traditional educational thought and practice, the idea of character suffered near eclipse in mid twentieth century reflection on moral education - due, in large part, to various empirical psychological critiques of character as an enduring site of morally s table traits or dispositions (see, notably, Hartshorne and May 1928-30). Moreover, compounding damage done by the highly influential critique of trait conceptions of moral conduct, Lawrence Kohlberg - arguably the dominant voice in theorising about moral education over the course of the last three decades of the twentieth century - famously dismissed what he referred to as ‘bag of virtues’ approaches to moral education (Kohlberg, 1984). In view of this, it is somewhat ironic that recent revival of interest in the moral significance of character on the part of both philosophers and psychologists has been much advocated by former followers of Kohlberg (see, for example, Narvaez and Lapsley, 2005; Lapsley and Narvaez, 2005) now persuaded that a strictly cognitive developmental approach to moral education - at any rate, one that excludes reference to other than purely cognitive sources of human moral motivation - is insufficient to account for all aspects of moral development.

To be sure, any moral educational interest in the notion of character would have to be an interest in good - as opposed to badcharacter. While such goodness or badness might also be said (at least in moral philosophy seminars) to be the sort of thing over which people disagree, it might nevertheless be safely guessed that qualities of honesty, fairness, courage, self-control, kindness, integrity and compassion would widely be regarded as indicative of good character, whereas dishonesty, injustice, cowardice, intemperance, cruelty and unscrupulousness would normally be considered hallmarks of bad character. It is also common for such (good) characteristics as honesty, justice and compassion to be referred to as virtues and for such (bad) traits as dishonesty, unfairness and cruelty to be called vices. In short, to conceive moral education in terms of the promotion of qualities of good character is tantamount to regarding it as the cultivation of moral virtues. It is certainly in such terms that the great philosophers of classical (Greek) antiquity

- especially the all-time master philosopher of virtue as character Aristotle - approached the issue of moral education. However, it may be a further irony that a key thinker to whom Kohlberg referred back in defending a rationalist justice-centred account of morality and moral education against the ‘bag of virtues’ view was Aristotle’s illustrious teacher Plato. For although Plato’s account of morality is both rationalist and justice-focused, he, nevertheless, conceives of justice as a virtue, and of virtue as involving considerably more than reason or cognition.

Character in Plato and Aristotle

Indeed, in his most famous work The Republic, Plato (1961) identifies reason, spirit and appetite as the three principal components of the soul and argues for proper development of each of these for morally appropriate conduct. However, Plato assigns a key role to the spirit for the control or discipline of appetites in accordance with the dictates of right reason, and he also argues that physical education plays a major role in training the spirit. This idea, of course, is not a million miles away from (and may well be the origin of) the traditional English public school idea that playing sports and games is importantly character forming (to the extent, as imputed to Wellington, that the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton). So although moral conduct for Plato was fundamentally a matter of the rule of reason over appetite, he maintained that such rule required reinforcement by other sources of motivation which he identified with spirit as more or less equivalent to good or positive qualities of character. Moreover, Plato seems to have regarded spirit as a kind of rightly trained affect - as a variety of informed, refined or ordered anger or self-assertion that adds, as it were, the passion of indignation to the voice of righteousness.

All the same, while Aristotle’s conception of character (see The Nicomachean Ethics in McKeon, 1941) has significant continuities with Plato’s, there are notable differences and developments. First, Aristotle’s ‘naturalistic’ anthropology differs from Plato’s in denying any sharp metaphysical distinction between soul, mind or reason

Reviews for Citizens of Character

[Frederick Obrero Paez · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

For me i realize this book can intimedate and reflect in my self to know the society how can life stands in a better situation. Life has many trial for everyone that we commit suicide, drugs, crimes, accident, family problem, but difinitely life can change with Christ Centered. If we can imagine now a days manny people died because of poverty, frustration, lack of assistance, lack of family engagements, etc. So we need build good character self motivators to prevent and have answer to crisis in our life.