Introduction to Comprehensive Character-Building Classroom: A Handbook for Teachers

This is the introduction printed in the book:

    I began collecting information for this book as part of a doctoral dissertation on character education. The first two chapters provide the general background and a brief theoretical orientation from research. The first chapter explains and defines what is meant by character, why it is important, and how it is acquired. It presents both psychological and philosophical points of view. The second chapter explains what character education is and why it is needed in schools today.

LC5

    In my work with classroom teachers I asked them how they taught character, what methods they used. After having collected ideas from thousands of teachers, I have organized six categories, which, I believe, encompass all aspects of a comprehensive character-building classroom. These six categories can be called the LC5 model.

                L stands for moral leadership.

    The five Cs are as follows:

               climate,

         community,

         correction,

         curriculum

               common projects through

                community service learning
 

    There are six chapters, one for each of these six categories. These chapters describe the components of a comprehensive character-building classroom: moral leader-ship, moral climate, moral community, moral correction, a moral curriculum, and class projects.

    The first category is moral leadership. The teacher serves as a model for students to emulate. In order to teach character education, educators must be people of high moral character. This chapter describes in detail many ethical issues faced by educators.
 

    The second category is moral climate, sometimes called ethos or environment. Classroom climate is the most pervasive and far reaching aspect of any character education program. It is the first thing noticed and the last thing remembered.

    Climate may be described as what is seen, heard, and felt. This chapter describes how to bring a sense of excitement to character education through a campaign. Campaigning is a planned and orderly way of building student motivation to acquire good character.
 

    The third category is moral community, sometimes referred to as structure, governance, or classroom management. This describes how the classroom is run, its mode of operation. Who is in charge of what? How is it organized? How do students take responsibility?
 

    The fourth category is moral correction, commonly called behavior management, positive guidance or discipline. Character education is used to correct misbehavior. Rather than change or modify behavior alone, the character which produces the behavior is addressed.
 

    The fifth category is moral curriculum. Character education can be included both through content (what is taught) and process (how it is taught). It may be a subject in itself such as a course in ethics or moral education, but it should be part of every academic discipline, lesson plan, and activity. A thematic approach is described.
 

    The sixth category is class projects or community service learning. As students adopt projects to make the world a better place, they are making themselves better people.
I believe that all classroom efforts to educate for character fall into one of these categories, so a chapter is devoted to each.
 

    The last chapter describes methods of assessing the character of students, as well as a character education program.
 

    The intent of this book is to provide tools for teachers who wish to implement a comprehensive character-building classroom.
 

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