Fairfax County’s character education program has raised hackles because it grades students — and breaks out results by race. It’s the “sounds good” syndrome gone wild, writes Mona Charen, whose children have been character-educated in the affluent Virginia county.
Let’s teach kids about the dangers of smoking. Sounds good. Let’s improve math scores with a new curriculum called “whole math.” Sounds good. Let’s reduce teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases by teaching sex ed. Sounds good. Let’s have cooperative learning where kids help one another. And so on.
In Fairfax County schools, students are “exhorted to demonstrate a number of ethical traits,” such as compassion, respect, responsibility and honesty. Each trait “is linked to a shape (respect is a triangle, honesty is a star).” So far, so good.
Then the school board asked for a report evaluating student conduct for “sound moral character and ethical judgment.” Results were grouped tby race.
Oh, dear. It seems that among third graders, 95 percent of white students received a grade of “good” or better, whereas only 86 percent of Hispanic kids did that well and only 80 percent of black and special education students were so rated.
Not surprisingly, blacks felt insulted.
Charen suggests schools should hold all students to the same standard of behavior without presuming to judge their ethics.
The schools unavoidably teach ethics and morality whether the curriculum explicitly calls for it or not. The attention lavished on Martin Luther King sends an unambiguous message about human equality and dignity. Reciting the Pledge of Allegiance instills patriotism. Excessive focus on racism, sexism, and other fashionable isms undermines patriotism. Excusing late papers teaches irresponsibility. Punishing a kindergartner who plants a kiss on a classmate as a “sexual harasser” teaches an appreciation for the absurd.
Teaching ethics implicitly “is always better if you wish to avoid cynicism,” Charen writes.
Liam Julian has more.
I read through Charen’s column because I was curious what instrument was used to evaluate the ethics of the various groups. It didn’t give much information. I rather suspect that the tool may have been vulnerable to “the eye of the beholder” in it’s evaluation. In other words–are there divergent levels of ethical behavior, or divergent perceptions of the levels of divergent behavior?
I think it’s crucial to teach ABOUT ethics, but I draw the line at “teaching ethics,” even ethics so presumably beneficial as patriotism or equality. As a parent, it is my job and the job of my church/synagogue/mosque/pagan grove/temple to instill the particular system of ethics in which my child will be raised, but as a teacher, it is NOT my job to so do.
It is my job, though, to teach students how to think — not “what,” but “how.” I think it’s crucial that teachers ask about and discuss issues of ethics for the purpose of challenging, clarifying, expanding upon, or otherwise getting students to think about the ethical views they themselves hold.
Anything else comes dangerously close to indoctrination.
I’m wondering if they also bothered to break down the data by economic status… In a lot of the DC area, “poor” and “black” tend to be overlapping catagories…..
A lot of these “Character Counts” courses tend to teach middle-class values: diligence, honesty, temperence, punctuality, politeness, etc.
Of course, “Middle-Class Values” are more prominent in the… middle class! But they’re also the habits that help people get and keep good jobs, which may be why schools want to teach them.
Anyway, the problem may NOT be a “racial difference”– it could be a “socio-economic” difference. (Kids growing up in a gang situation might not put as high a value on obeying the law, for instance)
And framing the problem a “race” one will probably hurt the kids in the long run by preventing them from learning the skills and habits they need to break out of poverty…….
I’d also like to know if the teachers and administrators were tested. For instance, in PLC fashion, does every member of the staff believe that All Students Can Learn? This sounds like a simple question but one that can fluster those teachers who deep down believe there to be some students who are incapable. Unfortunately, this lack of character in a teacher is rarely questioned and never challenged. Issues of character are trickle down in a classroom. Give respect, get respect. Set a tone of tolerance and the students will echo it. Including character education within one’s curriculum is vitally important, as is including it in your language and conversations with students. But one cannot assess students’ characters without holding those who influence them to the same standards.