Character Education Scotland News
Royal Society of Edinburgh, Wednesday 3rd November 2010
Chaired by Sir John Arbuthnott, FRSE
Sir John introduced the discussion by saying that he had recently given a presentation in the Scottish Parliament about preventative spending - what could one invest in by way of programmes that would help prevent more serious from arising at a later stage, which would then be much more challenging and expensive to address. He remarked that moral education and development was in fact a collective responsibility - a point reiterated later on - and not 'someone else's job.'
James Arthur highlighted some of the key research findings. He had been part of the Crick report on citizenship and as a humanist Sir Bernard Crick had taken the view that children needed political literacy but without a corresponding moral guidance. James disagreed, citing a 'litany of alarm’ painting a bleak picture of the state of modern young people in Britain: increasing suicides among young men, rising teenage pregnancies and abortions, deteriorating mental health and family breakdown. Small wonder that UNESCO found that these young people were much unhappier than their contemporaries in other countries. James had been asked to present the research findings in the Cabinet office and was part of a day moss consultation on character. However, Gordon Davidson noted that we are all aware that the majority of our young people today are respectful, responsible, caring etc. Clearly there is much to be done, but he saw the glass as being ‘half full’ rather that ‘half empty’. We should recognise this and promote the achievements and qualities of the majority.
Those with a strong character structure based on virtues were also more successful, more fulfilled and more resilient. RS Peters’ educational philosophy had focused on enabling young people to become critical, rational and autonomous. In this respect, schools could not be neutral, and pupils were bound to be influenced by the school ethos. The Aristotelian view linked the development of a family of virtues with human flourishing. Individuals had to have the opportunity to reflect on and choose to embody these virtues. Young people were generally tolerant and open, but they realised that there was a gap between their aspirations and conduct. Moreover, many lack an adequate vocabulary of moral discourse. Later on, James added that undergraduates had a much larger vocabulary to describe negative than positive qualities. The amount of time spent in front of computer screens may be correlated with a lack of social skills.
The role of teachers and indeed Scout leaders ‘in loco parentis’ came up on a number of occasions in the context of overall responsibility for moral education and character development. As a matter of course in the best schools, teachers are always sending moral messages to their pupils, for instance about the importance of being kind and fair. The trend towards professionalisation and the notion that the main function of teachers was to ‘deliver’ a preset curriculum had helped create a box-ticking mentality that compromised the real spirit of education. Delivering a body of knowledge was likened to filling empty vessels, when the real question is to encourage students or who they are and what they can become. Professionalisation is also linked to an emphasis on the acquisition of competencies and skills. Kenneth Wilson pointed out how a parallel development had occurred within economics with the removal of the discipline of political economy and its replacement by an objective and quantitative analysis of data. Yet, a moral view still informs economics, whether this is explicitly acknowledged or not.
In his opening remarks, David Lorimer told a story about a group of students being asked what qualities they thought characterised the people they most admired. Among those mentioned were being kind, positive, friendly, discipline, enthusiastic, outgoing, encouraging, appreciative, loving, organised, calm, responsible, trustworthy, understanding, cheerful and considerate. Such people are also self-starters and volunteers. The presenter Ed Foreman then asked the group to classify these qualities either as skills or attitudes. Only two qualities - being organised and disciplined - were thought to be skills while the rest are classified as attitudes. In addition, a research study involving 3000 people found that their success depended 15% on attitude and 85% on attitude. This finding reinforces the importance of work on character and values within an educational context.
Sir John projected forward 25 years, by which time the present Prime Minister will be in the House of Lords and humanity will be facing enormous challenges that will require the development and implementation of character qualities and values. There will also be an unprecedented need for cooperation and collaboration.
Anne Jardine from Learning and Teaching Scotland explained how the Curriculum for Excellence was based on the four values on the Scottish mace, namely wisdom, justice, compassion and integrity. The four capacities - successful learners, confident individuals, effective contributors and responsible citizens - were designed to inform the ethos of schools. Many schools were now formulating their own value statements and codes of practice, implementing policies based on respect, responsibility, honesty, fairness and justice. There were many opportunities to study character and values, for instance through characters in novels as well as more explicitly in RE. For her, character education means understanding, caring about and acting on one's core values, even if the phrase character education was not in fact common currency. The key was to be found in the quality of relationships. And in terms of personal achievement, there were plenty of opportunities for leadership, volunteering and service. Sir John remarked that the Learning for Life poster programme seemed to be tailor-made to match and enhance the agenda of the Curriculum for Excellence, but it did not yet seem to be widely enough known in Scottish education circles.
As a former headteacher, Gordon MacKenzie explained how he had successfully implemented the programme, and how enthusiastic students were about it. He believed that we need to promote ‘values-based schools’ where the staff, parents and children decide on ways to embody agreed values. Schools would accept greater responsibility in promoting character education – perhaps as part of the formal curriculum – and teachers would be ‘trained’ in the delivery. We should have trained specialists – as we do for ‘subjects’. But we can’t look at these values in isolation. Children must learn to understand their own emotions and develop strategies for managing negative feelings and promoting positive aspects of their personalities.
David Carr stressed the importance of defining clearly the exact meaning of values - whose justice, whose rationality and whose responsibility, are we really talking about? Many young people saw values as a matter of personal taste, either subjective or merely relative. In some cases, values are closely related to and even confused with beliefs, so it is important to be clear about what we are actually talking about. Moreover, one cannot take the right language for granted. David himself to Aristotelian view and has written widely about virtue ethics - for him values are closely related to virtues.
Patricia Thomson from Skills Development Scotland with an emphasis on leading by example and developing respect, 'putting strengths to work’, which meant first identifying these through a process of reflection. Susan Watt, chief executive of ProjectScotland, explained that the programme was about young people taking responsibility and learning who they are, while Prof Pat Willmer from the University of St Andrews explained how the university was exposing students to Great Ideas and was implementing a new form of student record to incorporate achievements outside the academic realm.
We were encouraged by the level of debate and the common ground identified by people working in different fields of education. There was general agreement that the pendulum has swung too far in the direction of a bureaucratic professionalisation with an exclusive emphasis on skills and competencies. The important point was that the full use of these skills in the achieved through a parallel development of positive attitudes and attributes incorporated in a person's character.
David Lorimer, Chief Executive, Character Scotland
