Character Education
Informational
Handbook & Guide
Definitions
and Benefits
Character Education is the
deliberate effort to help people understand, care about, and act upon
core ethical values.* An intentional and comprehensive character
education initiative provides a lens through which every aspect of
school becomes an opportunity for character development.
Benefits:
• It promotes character
development through the exploration of ethical issues across the
curriculum.
• It develops a positive and
moral climate by engaging the participation of students, teachers and
staff, parents, and communities.
• It teaches how to solve
conflicts fairly, creating safer schools that are freer of
intimidation, fear, and violence, and are more conducive to
learning.
Civic Education consists of both a
core curriculum and teaching strategies that give students the
knowledge, skills, virtues, and confidence to actively participate in
democratic life.
Benefits:
• It teaches how government,
businesses, community groups, and nonprofits work together to create
strong communities.
• It emphasizes that both
individual and group participation is important to the vitality of
communities and critical to sustaining our democratic way of life.
• It teaches civility and
respect for others when deliberating, negotiating, organizing, and
advocating for one’s own positions on public issues.
Service-Learning is a pedagogy that
connects meaningful community service experiences with academic
learning, personal growth, and civic responsibility. Service-learning
goes beyond extracurricular community service because it involves
participants in reading, reflection and analysis; provides students
an opportunity to develop a personal connection to what they are
learning; and creates a context for the application of concepts
introduced in the classroom.
Benefits:
• It enhances the educational
goals of the curriculum through experiential learning and critical
reflection.
• It helps students develop
the skills and virtues required for full participation and leadership
in their democratic communities.
• It serves the public good by
providing a needed service to individuals, organization, schools, or
other entities in the community.
* Opening sentence taken from The
Center For the 4th and 5th Rs (Respect and Responsibility), Dr.
Thomas Lickona, State University of New York at Cortland.
Developed by the Governor’s
Character Education Advisory Committee 2001
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