by Emily Weinstein
Last week, the CMEI hosted former PZer Scott Seider as he spoke about his new book, Character Compass. His talk covered broad issues of character education and outlined his experience studying three Boston schools that have made character development a focus. PZer and HGSE doctoral student Emily Weinstein attended the talk and reflected on Seider’s ideas and her key takeaways.
Seider began by describing the field of character education and the multifaceted meaning of “character” itself. He described the definitional challenge posed by studying character education; people within and across fields have different conceptions of what character means and whether it refers to psychological, social, emotional, behavioral and/or cognitive competencies. Seider explained that while No Child Left Behind was detrimental to character education and drew attention away from ethical and moral development in schools in the early 2000’s, there has been a resurgence of energy around the topic in the last few years. He highlighted an important transition—from simply getting “to” college to getting “to and through” college.” The energy around helping students achieve and persist in college has reinvigorated character education in schools.
Seider’s talk focused on a study of three Boston schools, all of which have character education as part of their missions. At Boston Prep, for example, a new charter school with character education as an explicit component of the school, Seider observed school-based ethics training in action. The school’s core curriculum includes a weekly class in ethical philosophy, which has a different focus in each grade. For instance, in 6th grade, students focus on learning and understanding concepts, such as truth. Across middle school, the course content becomes more complex and students read texts from Gandhi and consider the actions of historical figures like Harvey Milk. In high school, the course pushes students to form their own definitions and principles. Seider quoted one student who explained that whereas middle school ethics class might be more like a restaurant, the high school version is like a kitchen: students take an active role in creating and developing their own understandings in ways that fit with their lives. Before graduation, students complete a capstone project, writing their own code of ethics.
The two other schools Seider observed and studied also included an emphasis on character as a part of their mission statements. He compared the three systems, looking at the different approaches (i.e., emphasizing moral, civic, and/or performance character) and explored how the school’s emphasis influenced activities and actions and, in turn, student outcomes.
Seider noted that one effect of ethics class is the infusion of ethical language into student and faculty conversation, from the classrooms to the sports fields. Seider also explained that middle and high school students are forming and solidifying key facets of their identities, creating schemas and exploring their self-concepts. The ethics courses and character education program complements and energizes schema building, providing an additional layer to students’ consideration of questions such as “who am I and how do I act?”
Seider’s mixed methods approach was another strength of his presentation; he shared both quantitative data capturing salient trends as well as rich qualitative stories based on more than 93 class observations and student interviews. The idea that ethics was infused in the language of these schools is compelling in and of itself; students (and teachers and parents) in schools with formal and required ethics courses are regularly engaged in discussions on character, ethics, and morality. In addition, taking valuable class time for character education further signals the importance of these concepts. As the schools are relatively young, it will be exciting to follow their programs – and Scott’s work – over the next few years. Scott’s discussion of his work provided a meaningful contribution to the ongoing discussion at HGSE about civic and moral education and, of course, it was exciting to hear about such timely work from a fellow Ed School graduate and former PZer.