Patrick F. Bassett, NAIS President

www.nais.org

The Moral Climate of Schools: Educating for Character

The Moral Climate of Schools

“Children spend 20% of their waking lives in school, but exposure to the other 80% works often at cross-purposes.” ~Rob Evans

Whose Values?

The Moral Climate of Schools

• The Challenges We Face • Teaching Ethics vs. Practicing Virtue• The Power of Story-telling • Schools of Hope (Douglas Heath)• Developing EQ: Emotional Intelligence (Goleman)

The Challenges We FaceOverhead in the Hallways & NAIS Moral Life of Schools Survey

Results: Student Responses• 3rd grader: “I’m not altogether certain what immorality means, but I think it means……..….‘living in the suburbs.’”

• 9th grader: "I haven't been here long enough….. to tackle a moral question. Sorry."

• 9th grader: "Whether or not to cheat. I've decided not to.

….Not much, anyway."

The Challenges We FaceOverhead in the Hallways & NAIS Moral Life of Schools Survey

Results: Student Responses

• 6th grader: "The whole class had the opportunity to cheat, but no one did….. It was an easy test."

• 7th grader: "I found $20 on the library table and turned it in. I should have kept it. The kid was a jerk and was ungrateful…..

I beat him up after school."

The Challenges We Face

• 10th grader tour guide response (Episcopal-related school) to Jewish parent’s query about whether or not there was any anti-Semitism at the school: “Why yes…this is a great school, and we have everything here.”

• Teacher of the Year, after being challenged for physically punishing two boys who had published unflattering remarks about her in newly trowelled sidewalk: “Well I loved them in the abstract…

but not the concrete.”• 9th Grader, when asked why he would not steal a book

from the library where no adults supervise….“Because I would be killed.”

The Challenges: What Research Tells Us

• 41% of college-bound agreed with the statement, “A person has to lie or cheat sometimes in order to succeed.” (Josephson Institute of Ethics survey, October 2002)

• 80% of National Honor Society students admit to cheating, yet self-confessed cheaters affirm their personal righteousness and trustworthiness (Who’s Who in American High Schools Survey, ’98; Josephson Report, cited in Ed Week, 01/05/05).

• Growing disrespect for teachers and other authority figures: www.mrsmithsux.com; www.myspace.com

The Challenges: What Research Tells Us• Peer cruelty on the rise. (Michael Thompson et. al.)

• Obsession with “self-esteem” distorts school reactions to immoral behavior: e.g., the public school that caught a boy stealing from his peers’ knapsacks, but reported it “uncooperative behavior” to avoid shaming the student (“Moral Mandate,” Edmund Damon, Education Next, Spring 2005).

• Independent School Grads Outperform Grads from all other Types of Schools, in every Arena, including use of Alcohol & Drugs. “The Deal.” (NELS Report).

The Challenges We FaceThe More Sobering Examples of the Moment

• Naval Academy Quarterback: investigated for date rape: described as highly popular, highly disciplined, highly religious.

• The Three Southern Methodist College Drama Majors: arrested for burning churches in Alabama: described as “good kids,” “the most talented and creative in the class.”

• It’s likely that they all were taught “right from wrong”: so moral discernment (“right vs. wrong”) and strategies (“right vs. right”) are NOT as much the issue for youth as for adults.

• Brain development part of the issue. Context, modeling, and “ethical exercising” are more of the issue. (See HBR article on brain development. Note “social norming” movement.)

Clashing Cultures: Why Good Schools are Countercultural

What is unusual about our times is that the American culture projected in the popular media and popular imagination has become so distorted and grotesque – so reflective of only the more sordid aspects of our collective values and aspirations – that counterculture is something we long for. Indeed, when it comes to education, the best schools…are now, ironically, countercultural.

Patrick F. Bassett, Education Week, 2/6/2002

Schools as Countercultural?

Values of the Popular Culture vs. Independent School Values:

• Rationalizing of dishonesty Enforcing honor codes(excusing lying and cheating: :www.cheat.com vs. (no lying, cheating, stealing) www.turnitin.com.)

• Lionizing the individual Proselytizing community(star-worship; limitless greed) (team-play; service)

• Indulging sexual profligacy Expecting abstinence(scandal, romance novels, tv & movies) (limits on “pda”)

• Excusing violence Eschewing violence(“rights” issues; professional sports behavior, etc.) (conflict resolution training)

• Enduring vulgarity & profanity Insisting on civility(crude language, coarse behaviors, improper dress) (confronting boorish behaviors)

Schools as Countercultural?

Values of the Popular Culture vs. Independent School Values:

• Winning at all costs Fair Play(hazing of opponents, cheating for advantage) (sportsmanship credo; no cut policies)

• Conspicuous Consumption Environmental Stewardship(clothes & cars) (modeling good citizenship)

• Cultural Tribalism (Uniqueness) School as Community(asserting one’s differences) (Latin root, communitas: finding what is

common to many, shared by many)

• Parental Definitions of Success School Definitions of Success

(getting ahead) (contributing to the common good)

Why Good Schools are Countercultural

What do morally healthy schools share?– Exceptional teachers– Effective and appropriate moral climate– The latter tends to attract the former– The former tends to reinforce the latter– An internal moral climate that is most often in opposition

to the dominant popular culture– Heads and board chairs who identify “school climate” as

one of the top task of school heads.

Source: John Watson, TABS Conference 12/07/02

The pervasiveness of popular culture

Our inability to insulate ourselves from popular culture

Seductiveness of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll in kid culture.

Adapted from: John Watson, TABS Conference 12/07/02

What We Can’t Change

What We Can Change Lack of clarity about school community values:

Will we tolerate hazing on sports teams? Coaches screaming at players or refs?

Lack of will to assert school community values: Will we suspend or expel students for immoral behaviors on OR off campus? Will we “fire” parents who are abusive to our staff?

Lack of willingness to explore the rent fabric: Will we survey and address students honesty and substance use and sexual experimentation? Will we draw a “mission map” of the school (to find out where we fall short)?

Lack of Communication about Values as the Value Proposition: What are the school’s core values?

Adapted from: John Watson, TABS Conference 12/07/02

The Moral Climate of Schools

• The Challenges We Face • Teaching Ethics vs. Practicing Virtue• The Power of Story-telling • Schools of Hope (Douglas Heath)• Developing EQ: Emotional Intelligence (Goleman)

High Expectations

Teaching Ethics vs. Practicing Virtue• Teaching Ethics: Asking students to make ethical judgment, in the

abstract, about issues of which they are often uninformed: abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, DNA engineering, stem cell research, etc.: an approach that sometimes is counter-productive (reinforcing value relativism) rather than productive (grounding students in an ethical base),

• Teaching Macbeth: "sound and fury" monologue ("Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player/That struts and frets his hour upon the stage..) and only examining vocabulary, metaphor, meter: Teachers fearful of values never touch the underlying theme: Does life have meaning, or is it “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”? Should we ask, like Hamlet, “Doth conscience make cowards of us all?”

• The best schools re-enact, role-play, and probe ethical decisions in the teaching of literature, history, science, etc.

Teaching Ethics vs. Practicing VirtueChildren have never been good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them. ~James Baldwin

• Kids learn to be ethical by observing how adults negotiate ethical dilemmas

• Kids are the “hypocrisy police”: Why do we hold students to a higher standard than we hold the adults in our community? What are the school community standards for drug and alcohol

abuse among the adults? In the privacy of their own homes? You mean the “rules of the school that extend off-campus for students don’t for adults?”

School standards for faculty who prevaricate? For coaches who verbally abuse referees?

Faculty who plagiarize or misrepresent their academic credentials?

Right vs. Wrong • The “easy” moral decisions kids and adults face are “right vs.

wrong,” “black vs. white” decisions

• For less clear-cut dilemmas, a useful rubric for school leaders is “The 4-way Test” (Source: see Institute for Global Ethics website, www.globalethics.org)

The Legal Test The Gut-feeling Test The Front-page Test The Role-model Test

• What are examples of “gray-zone” offenses? How would we handle them in our schools?

Faculty arrested and convicted for DUI? Head who gets drunk at school auction? “Jurisdictional” issues when students behave after school, off-campus: e.g., chat room slander; playground shunning; email distribution of compromising pictures?

Right vs. Right• The deepest ethical dilemmas are “right vs. right” decisions (Source:

see Institute for Global Ethics website, www.globalethics.org) individual vs. community: e.g., separate the disruptive child who needs

socialization skills from his cooperative learning team that is being held back and exasperated by him? Expel on first offense?

truth vs. loyalty: hold a confidence of a self-destructive behavior or report it? “Narc” on a friend to support the honor code?

short-term vs. long-term: The Palace Thief / Emperor’s Club example of making an exception in the short-term (re-grading a paper for a student you think you can “re-direct”) in the hope of long term salvation?

justice vs. mercy: after putting in a “zero tolerance policy” and suspending the two boys for fighting in the schoolyard, finding out a third boy was involved, because of persistent taunting and bullying, who begs not to be suspended since he says his family will be shamed and he beaten.

Right vs. Right

• Adults don’t do a good enough job is raising to the conscious and articulated level how they reach their ethical decisions.

What are the core values that dictated the ultimate right vs. right decision? Question: Whose values apply? Answer: The universal ones. What are those?

The five most commonly cited in research and across all religions and cultures are… …compassion, honesty, fairness, responsibility, respect.

Note on “fairness” (or “justice”): For kids, “fairness” means everyone gets the same punishment for the same crime—often not that simple for adults. Fairness experiment: $10 to pairs of “proposers” and “responders”: what’s the limit of a “fair split?”

Right vs. Right

Beyond a religious or honor code foundation (if any), schools may wish to articulate to their students the humanist foundation, rooted in classical philosophy (the Institute for Global Ethics “3 tests”):

1. Ends-based test (PFB note: rooted in John Stuart Mills’ utilitarianism, “Do that causes the greatest general good”)

2. Rules-based test (PFB note: rooted in Immanuel Kant’s “categorical imperative”: “Do that which you would want to see universalized” or “The Golden Rule”)

3. Care-based test (PFB note: rooted in Carol Gilligan’s caring ethic: “Do that which a caring person would do.”)

Right vs. Right

It’s the job of school leaders to explain to kids the right vs. right dilemmas we face ourselves:

The town meeting after an expulsion:

“I struggled with this decision, because one of our principles at this school, ‘caring,’ urged us to keep John here, but our other principle, ‘play by the rules,’ dictated otherwise, for the good of the school and its ability to attract and keep good citizens. While some of you will think that it’s not ‘fair’ to expel John but keep Mary in the community, we saw a difference in the level of involvement in the offense, and had to make the kind of excruciating distinction that some may think is inconsistent, but that others will know is right, given the circumstances.”

The Moral Climate of Schools

• The Challenges We Face • Teaching Ethics vs. Practicing Virtue• The Power of Story-telling • Schools of Hope (Douglas Heath)• Developing EQ: Emotional Intelligence (Goleman)

The Importance of Story• Greek & Arabic & Judeo-Christian & Native-American

& African (etc.) development of story-telling (parables) form the oral tradition of the culture: (Iliad/Odyssey, Aesop’s Fables, Tales of the Arabian Nights, Native-American creation stories; etc.)

• The Power of Fairy Tales: The Uses of Enchantment, Bruno Bettleheim: the Brothers Grimm originals vs. sanitized versions of fairy tales (e.g., The Three Little Pigs)

• The Centrality of the Hero Myth in American Culture:

e.g., Paul Bunyon, Davy Crockett, Horatio Alger… & Luke Skywalker (Whom are we missing in this picture?)

The Importance of Story• The Absence of Communitarian stories in American Culture:

individualism legacy of the Thoreau impulse (popularized in our film, music, literature). What are the countervailing stories?: Menorah story; the shaved head story.

• The importance of context: Piaget’s Volume of Water: the Naughty Puppet Version; Putting the Good Samaritan story to the test.

• What are your school’s five most powerful stories? Are there one or two that you tell every year, so people would come to miss it if you didn’t tell it? “The Tazer Story”

The Moral Climate of Schools

• The Challenges We Face • Teaching Ethics vs. Practicing Virtue• The Power of Story-telling • Schools of Hope (Douglas Heath)• Developing EQ: Emotional Intelligence (Goleman)

Schools of Hope: Douglas Heath

Predictors of Adult Success: (Longitudinal Studies of Independent School Grads)

Highest verbal SATs correlate with adults 30 years later with... • less well-integrated personalities.• lower self-esteem.• less self-knowledge.• distant and conflictual professional relationships.• less successful marriage relations.Is the goal to produce more Yale-educated “Unabombers”?Co-curricular involvement correlates with …• more success in school (better grades, better morale, better

ethical decisions, less involvement with drugs and alcohol)• adult effectiveness (extracurriculars = the most valid predictor)Douglas Heath’s Lives of Hope: psychological maturity, androgyny, and virtue correlate with success in life.

Building Boys, Making MenThe Seven Virtues of Manhood

• The True Friend• The Humble Hero• The Servant Leader• The Moral Mediator• The Heart Patient• The Bold Adventurer • The Noble Knight(Presbyterian Day School, Memphis)

PFB Note: Most important virtue: moral courage: cf. Rush Kidder & Gus Lee.Complete the sentence: “I want my child to be….”Successful? Happy? Or Good?

Schools of Hope

Sociologist Anthony Campolo’s “test”:

In Japan, mothers say, “I want my child to be….

…successful” (and youth culture pays a high price)

In America, mothers say, “I want my child to be…

….happy” (and youth culture pays a high price)

Right answer? “I want my child to be…

… good” (if morally good, then higher likelihood of also being successful and happy).

The Moral Climate of Schools

• The Challenges We Face • Teaching Ethics vs. Practicing Virtue• The Power of Story-telling • Schools of Hope (Douglas Heath)• Developing EQ: Emotional Intelligence (Goleman)

Schools of Hope: Developing Empathy “Other-centered character maturation depends on learning empathy, which is most directly called forth in relationships with diverse people in varied situations.” ~Douglas Heath, Schools of Hope

How to teach empathy & EQ: • exercises (e.g., “Crossing the Line” diversity

exercise)• case studies• service learning

The Good News: The Millenials in our Schools Now

The Theory of Generations: Repeating the pattern by the fourth generation.

An Upturn: The numbers of teenagers who say they would act unethically to get ahead if there were no chance of getting caught: 22 percent, down from 33 percent in 2003; those who believe that "people who practice good business ethics are more successful in business than those who don't" climbed to 69 percent this year, up from 56 percent in 2003. ~Survey by JA Worldwide (Junior Achievement) and Deloitte & Touche USA The online survey of 777 teens aged 13 through 18 was conducted by Harris Interactive® in July 2005.

Schools of Hope: Moral Agency

Developing the Partnership on Character Development

Exercise for Board, Faculty, Parents MeetingsName an important value at your school….• How do you know this value is present? • What and who supports the value?

Name another value, one that needs more attention…• What tells you that this value is not present enough?• What or who gets in the way of this value?• Who needs to bring about change?

Resources

National Association of Independent Schools (www.nais.org)

Council for Spirituality & Ethics Education (CSEE: www.csee.org)

Character Education Foundation, Thomas Likoma (SUNY): 607-753-2456 character@cortland.edu Good & Smart Schools Project

Resources Center for the Advancement of Ethics and

Character at Boston University, 617-353-4568 www.bu.edu/education/caec/

Institute for Global Ethics: www.globalethics.org

Parenting/Ethics Books: The Blessings of the Skinned Knee (Wendy Mogel); Giving Good Gifts (George E. Conway); Creating the Ethical School (Bognsoon Zubay & Jonas F. Soltis)

The Social Norms Approach To Preventing School and College Age Substance Abuse, H. Wesley Perkins (NIU and the ISSL Experiment)

Exemplary School Programs World Religions/Literature St. Francis High

School (KY): Developing cross-cultural understanding by reading the original holy texts

Media Literacy (Columbus School for Girls (OH): Forming partnerships to address media violence & stereotyping

Character Curriculum: Canterbury School (IN): Chapel, Honor Code, Advisory, Recognition, Athletics/Arts, Community Service, Together Talk, Expectations, Religion

Exemplary School Programs Conflict Resolution Friends School (MN)

Honor Code Woodberry Forest School (VA)

Multicultural Curriculum (Univ. of Chicago Lab Schools) (IL)

Partnering with Parents (St. Katherine's-St. Mark’s School (IA), Blake School (MN): Parents covenant.

The End!For More Resources on this Topic, Go to

www.nais.org

Mark Twain: "To be good is noble, but to teach others how to be good is nobler -and less trouble."

Appendix of Related Slides

IGE/Gallup College StudentSurvey (March 2000)

Honesty

Respect

Responsibility

Equality

Fairness

Compassion

Shared Values: Chile

Solidaridad

Responsabilidad

Libertad

Tolerancia

Verdad/Honesticia

Justicia

Shared Values: China

Responsibility

Fairness

Respect

Truth

Shared Values: Guatemala

• Honestidad (Honesty)• Responsabilidad (Responsibility)• Lealtad (Loyalty)• Humildad (Humility)• Justicia (Justice)• Respecto (Respect)• Sabiduria (Wisdom)

Shared Values: Bangladesh

• Truth• Responsibility• Respect• Fairness• Freedom

Camden Hills Regional High SchoolCamden, Maine

Respect

Responsibility

Integrity

Honesty

Loyalty

Shared Values: Japan