How do people acquire modesty? A simple answer is: if people see that modesty is a worthy trait, they will incorporate it into their character. However, sometimes the knowledge that one is modest would undermine one's modesty. So, Driver claims that the modest person must not know his merits. If we are to accept Driver's claim, it would be…

Character development is part of the educational process. The current literature examining the cultural influences and educational strategies that have an impact on character development has shown certain gaps, particularly in the context of Guinea, West Africa. These include the lack of a framework and model for character development from this…

This article identifies theoretical and practical resources for practitioners and researchers working toward cultivating character and moral judgment in youth. In doing this, the article draws on a 3-year study on character education in U.K. schools completed by the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues at the University of Birmingham and…

Education is a moral enterprise, and higher education has the accountability to produce skilled learners with cognitive, psychological, and social-emotional competences. Formal and informal approaches of character education increase in demand. On the one hand, students should be guided to gain character strength and moral compass to confront the…

In this article, we introduce the four component model (FCM), which describes both the internal processes that play distinct roles in the production of moral behavior and their associated sets of relevant, teachable skills. We use this model as an analytic framework to examine college students' moral character experiences reported in the Wabash…

The struggle to become lucid is at the heart of The Myth of Sisyphus. To understand the absurd is to understand that the fit between our conception of the world and the world itself is fraught with uncertainty; lucidity is the elucidation of the absurd. To be lucid is to revolt against the type of certainty that leads to suffering; to revolt…

Character education specialists seem to know it when they see it, but what it means to call something a character education program remains unclear. One possible source for this uncertainty is the manner in which character education has been defined. By identifying certain features as necessary, existing definitions fail to encompass the universe…

Kristján Kristjánsson's aim in this article is to bury the old saw that dialogue is exclusively a Socratic but not an Aristotelian method of education for moral character. Although the truncated discussion in Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics" of the character development of the young may indicate that it is merely the result of…

How can we understand human agency, and what does it mean to educate character? In this essay Klas Roth develops a Kantian notion, one that suggests we render ourselves efficacious and autonomous in education and elsewhere. This requires, among other things, that we are successful in bringing about the intended result through our actions and the…

If strengthening children's moral and spiritual selves is the most important challenge facing youth-serving organizations in the United States today, three things are required to respond: a clear road map of where to go and how to get there, a critical mass of champions prepared to lead the way, and candid readiness assessments and strategies for…

Describes two meetings on youth development in the new millennium, held in Oxford (England) in November 1998: a workshop to plan youth conferences and trainer training courses related to the contributions of adventure and outdoor experiences to young people's cultural, moral, and spiritual development; and an international conference, sponsored by…

Modern education is examined in the light of John Dewey's theory that moral education is a process of involving singular human beings, living consciously in association with one another, in thinking purposively and intelligently about subject-matter provided by their common, intertwined lives. (JD)

Moral education is woven so tightly into the fibers of the public school curricula that educators must systematically plan moral education programs that rely on both the natural propensities of their students and the material presently employed in the schools. (JD)

Social scientists and educators who favor the developmental approach to values acquisition focus on the individual and his or her own psychological growth as the means to acquiring a healthy set of values. On the other hand, those who favor the transmission approach to values acquisition focus on the instillation of societal and group norms in the…

Discusses why the early childhood education curriculum should provide opportunities for children to deal with moral issues and think about right and wrong in developmentally appropriate ways. Suggests ways in which teachers can assist children in this development and activities that promote growing experiences. (ET)