“Character education is as old as education itself. Down through history, education has had two great goals: to help people become smart and to help them become good,” writes education professor Thomas Lickona in his 1993 Educational Leadership article “The Return of Character Education.”
Even in societies with divisive political and social issues, people can at least agree that being truly human requires acquiring and living out certain virtues, values, or character traits. Are schools doing enough in character education, or are families and society abdicating too much responsibility to the schools?
ASCD Express features school programs that promote the development of virtues and values that translate into positive actions in the classroom, on the playground, at home, and in the wider community. From the vantage point of 2010, has character education in schools indeed made the “comeback” Lickona predicted was occurring? Learn more.
