Ten Myths About Character,Virtue and Virtue Education – Plus Three Well-Founded Misgivings

Abstract

Initiatives to cultivate character and virtue in moral education at school continue to provoke sceptical responses. Most of those echo familiar misgivings about the notions of character, virtue and education in virtue – as unclear, redundant, old-fashioned, religious, paternalistic, anti-democratic, conservative, individualistic, relative and situation dependent. I expose those misgivings as ‘myths’, while at the same time acknowledging three better-founded historical, methodological and practical concerns about the notions in question.     

Educating for inquisitiveness: A case against exemplarism for intellectual character education

ABSTRACT

One natural application of Linda Zagzebski’s exemplarist moral theory (EMT) is found in the context of moral and intellectual character education. Zagzebski discusses this application in her recent book, commenting that ‘exemplars can serve as a guide for moral training’ (p. 129) and endorsing ‘the learning of virtue by imitation’ (p. 129). This theme has been pursued compellingly by authors working at the intersection of virtue ethics and education, contributing to an emerging case for exemplarist-based approaches to character education. I focus on intellectual character education and draw attention to an interesting case in which exemplarism in the classroom may be seen to inhibit, rather than promote, the development of intellectually virtuous character. This is the case of virtuous inquisitiveness.     

Can we measure practical wisdom?

ABSTRACT

Wisdom, long a topic of interest to moral philosophers, is increasingly the focus of social science research. Philosophers have historically been concerned to develop a rationally defensible account of the nature of wisdom and its role in the moral life, often inspired in various ways by virtue theoretical accounts of practical wisdom (phronesis). Wisdom scientists seek to, among other things, define wisdom and its components so that we can measure them. Are the measures used by wisdom scientists actually measuring what philosophers have in mind when they discuss practical wisdom? I argue that they are not. Contemporary measures of wisdom and its components may pick out some necessary prerequisites of practical wisdom, but they do not measure a philosophically plausible practical wisdom or its components. After explaining the argument and defending it against objections, I consider its implications. Should wisdom scientists ignore the philosophical conception of practical wisdom in favor of other conceptions, revise their methods to try to measure it, or continue the interdisciplinary study of practical wisdom without expecting to measure it? I make a preliminary argument for the third option.     

Does Aristotle believe that habituation is only for children?

ABSTRACT

Full virtue and practical wisdom comprise the end of neo-Aristotelian moral development, but wisdom cannot be cultivated straight away through arguments and teaching. Wisdom is integrated with, and builds upon, habituation: the acquisition of virtuous character traits through the repeated practice of corresponding virtuous actions. Habit formation equips people with a taste for, and commitment to, the good life; furthermore it provides one with discriminatory and reflective capacities to know how to act in particular circumstances. Unfortunately, habituation is often understood primarily as a method suitable only for children. This article examines whether Aristotle limited habituation to children and, if not, what the relationship between habituation and wisdom beyond childhood might look like. This article concludes that wisdom-guided habituation is also possible for adults who continue and confirm their already established virtuous habits. The implications of this for professional moral education are subsequently discussed.     

CHARACTER IN TEACHING

ABSTRACT:  Qualities of personal character would appear to play a significant role in the professional conduct of teachers. It is often said that we remember teachers as much for the kinds of people they were than for anything they may have taught us, and some kinds of professional expertise may best be understood as qualities of character. After (roughly) distinguishing qualities of character from those of personality, the present paper draws on the resources of virtue ethics to try to make sense of the former. In the course of this, it is argued that while the key virtue ethical concept of phronesis or practical wisdom has been widely deployed to account for aspects of professional teacher expertise, it has also been subject to rather un-Aristotelian interpretation as a kind of situation-specific productive reasoning. The present paper seeks to show that it is better employed for understanding character in general and character in teaching in particular. The paper concludes with some observations about the professional education or cultivation of character.     

The Aims and Practice of Ethics Education in an Undergraduate Curriculum: Reasons for choosing a skills approach

In 1998 the author, working in the University of Glasgow Institute of Biomedical and Life Sciences with European Commission funding, set out to design an integrated ethics approach in the undergraduate curriculum. This paper describes the choices made in relation to the aims and methods of teaching ethics in an undergraduate bioscience curriculum. The acceptable and reasonable aims for a ethics teaching are skills based: ethical sensitivity and moral reasoning. Behaviour/value and virtue/character approaches are rejected. An ideal ethics intervention would last 4-12 weeks and be based on studentcentred teaching methods involving student participation in ethical dilemmas.     

LGBTQIA+ youth as multicultural educators

ABSTRACT

Multicultural education generally takes place as culturally competent adults prepare other adults to work with a variety of student youth. In this paper, we present an alternative that disrupts the pattern of adults teaching about youth. Our alternative has youth educating adults in ways that centre youth’s experiences and insights with schooling. We discuss the educative efforts of Chroma, a youth community for LGBTQIA+ and allied youth aged 12–20. First, we tell the story of Chroma’s educative efforts. Then, we discuss our methodology. Next, we discuss three key sets of insights about their educative efforts – anchoring expertise, meeting adult learners halfway, and barriers to learning. We raise questions inspired by these findings. At last, we conclude with a deconstruction of the adult–youth binary in multicultural education and ethnographic research.     

Reviving the ancient virtues in the scholarship of teaching,with a slight critical twist

This conceptual study argues that the scholarship of teaching is not just an evidence-based but also a virtues-based practice. To this end, it pursues two interrelated objectives. First, it seeks to show that the scholarship of teaching is supported by the intellectual virtues of ‘episteme’ (theoretical knowledge), ‘techne’ (productive knowledge) and ‘phronesis’ (practical knowledge). These three intellectual virtues stand in a particular relationship to one another and phronesis assumes a vital mediating function infusing the scholarship of teaching with the practical wisdom required in concrete situations. Phronesis, particularly a critically inspired phronesis, also enables the proper development and enactment of moral virtues, especially truthfulness, justice and courage, without which the standards associated with scholarship could not be upheld. It is further argued that the scholarship of teaching is usefully enriched by recognising two different versions of evidence-based practice: one is concerned with the evidence of instrumental effectiveness between strategies and outcomes; the other with evidence of the internal consistency between strategies and desired outcomes. It is proposed that analysing the scholarship of teaching through the lens of virtue helps appreciate what kind of a practice the scholarship of teaching is and the challenges involved in engaging with it well.     

The impact of teaching in a one-to-one computing classroom on teachers’ work outside the classroom

ABSTRACT

One-to-one computing programmes – that is, when each student has a personal, portable computer to use while learning – have been studied extensively, mostly regarding their actual classroom implementation. In this quantitative study, the authors take a broader perspective, exploring the impact of teaching in one-to-one computing programmes on teachers’ beliefs regarding their job outside the classroom. Participants were middle school and high school teachers who had taught in both one-to-one and traditional classrooms – and hence could reflect upon the differences between the two settings. The methodology included questionnaires based on Danielson’s comprehensive Framework of Teaching. The results suggest more positive attitudes towards teaching in one-to-one programmes than in traditional classrooms in all domains tested; however, the one-to-one instruction applied portrays a rather shallow, instrumental use of the digital devices in a way that supports existing teaching practices and beliefs, rather than a transformative effect of such programmes on teaching.     

An onto-semiotic approach to the analysis of the affective domain in mathematics education

ABSTRACT

A subject of growing interest in mathematics education is the affective domain and its effects on the teaching and learning processes, giving rise to different models of its components and conditioning factors. In this paper, we apply the ontological and semiotic categories from the Onto-Semiotic Approach (OSA) to research in mathematics education, to build an inclusive and systematic model to consider affective situations, practices, objects and processes, as well as the corresponding dualities: personal – institutional, ostensive – non-ostensive, extensive – intensive, unitary – systemic, expression – content. The dynamic character of affects (emotions, attitudes, beliefs and values) and their relations with the epistemic, cognitive, interactional and resources is modelled by the didactical configuration and didactical trajectory notions, theoretical tools which include the affective sub-configuration and sub-trajectory as key components. Another result obtained from this work is the revision of the indicators of affective suitability proposed in previous works.     

Secondary school students’ attitudes to practical work in biology,chemistry and physics in England

ABSTRACT

Background: In England, practical work is a major part of secondary school science and yet little research has examined students’ attitudes specifically to practical work.

Purpose: To examine students’ attitudes to practical work in biology chemistry and physics in secondary schools in England.

Sample: The study involved 607 students from Year 7 to Year 10 (aged 11–15) drawn from three state-maintained secondary schools in England. The schools were, broadly speaking, representative of schools in England in terms of academic measures such as GCSE outcomes, value-added performance and socio-economic area.

Design and methods: The research considered students’ attitudes in terms of an established analytical framework incorporating the affective, behavioural and cognitive (ABC) domains and used a mixed methods approach involving questionnaires, lesson observations, and focus group discussions.

Results: Whilst secondary students’ attitudes to practical work were, generally speaking, positive they were not constant and homogenous but change over time. The affective value of practical work was found to vary by subject although in all three sciences this value decreased, albeit at different rates, as students approached their General Certificate in Secondary Education examinations (GCSE) taken at age 16.

Conclusion: The affective value of practical work needs to be considered on a subject by subject basis, rather than, as is often the case currently in school, in terms of a generic attitude to science practical work. Furthermore, the affective value of practical work can be maximised by using more at the start of secondary education (Key Stage 3 – ages 11–14) with a gradual, subject-specific, reduction as students approach their summative public examinations (age 16) when their preference for non-practical, exam orientated, teaching increases.     

The Ethical Function of Research and Teaching

Abstract

It is the epistemic as well as the ethical responsibility of academics to aim to approach their research and teaching with a proper understanding of the ultimate ethical purpose or telos of their defining activities and products,which is the practical aim of promoting human flourishing. Minimally, academics should aim at understanding, and a key component of understanding is to understand the ideal ethical purpose of what is being researched and taught. For instance, sadistic Nazi medical researchers and teachers—Mengeles of sorts—in addition to having reprehensible commitments,would be significantly ignorant about their own intellectual concerns by virtue of their abject (belief-expressing) commitments. I will show that insights drawn from extreme cases such as this one apply across disciplines and in less extreme cases.     

Empathy,teaching dispositions,social justice and teacher education

ABSTRACT

Considerable attention over the past several years has been given to empathy as a desirable teacher disposition. Situating empathy in a slice of the research on dispositions, the author identifies and explores several problems surrounding empathy related to expectations, definitions, measurement, inferential accuracy, and the realization of social justice. An argument is made for listening to learn as an alternative to empathy as a teaching disposition and virtue.     

African(a) philosophy of education and deliberative university teaching

Abstract

This article explores the notion of an African(a) philosophy of education and its implications for university teaching in South Africa. African(a) philosophy of education brings into sharper focus the need to reconceptualise university teaching in South Africa, particularly along the lines of deliberative inquiry. This article examines constitutive meanings of African(a) philosophy of education and what it means for teachers both to be deliberative and to cultivate deliberation.     

List of books reviewed B.J.E.S. 42:4

ABSTRACT

Since gratitude is a significant pro-social quality or virtue, it might be (and has been) considered of some educational concern. However, while it clearly needs to be understood as a response that is in some sense required or owed towards benefactors, gratitude would hardly seem genuine unless it is freely and perhaps joyfully given – perhaps on the basis of some specific grateful emotion. Despite some academic appreciation of tension between these aspects of gratitude, the psychological and normative implications of what we shall call here the ‘paradox of gratitude’ for its learning or acquisition have been less thoroughly explored. Following some consideration of rival educational perspectives on this tension, this article argues that the best route to its resolution may be to surrender the idea of a distinct pro-social emotion or sentiment of gratitude.     

Sophistic ethics in the technical writing classroom: Teaching nomos,deliberation, and action

Drawing on arguments by Carolyn Miller, Steven Katz, and others, this essay claims that teaching ethics is particularly important to technical writing. Next, the essay outlines a classical, sophistic approach to ethics based on the theories and pedagogies of Protagoras, Gorgias, and Isocrates. This sophistic approach emphasizes the Greek concept of nomos, internal and external deliberation, and responsible action or articulation. The final section of the essay discusses possible problems and pedagogical applications of sophistic ethics in the contemporary technical writing classroom.     

English teachers’ uses of motivational strategies beyond an established framework

ABSTRACT

Background: Although the usefulness of Dörnyei’s framework of motivational strategies to language teachers has been widely tested, motivational techniques that are not within the framework have less commonly been accounted for.

Purpose: This study explores the uses of motivational strategies beyond Dörnyei’s taxonomy, and the factors that cause English teachers to use them.

Methods: In total, 22 teachers of English as a foreign language (EFL) in Hong Kong participated in this study. Reflective journal data and interview data, supported by classroom observations, were collected and analysed qualitatively.

Findings: The results reveal that, while most of the reported strategies corresponded closely to Dörnyei’s recommendations, two additional macrostrategies – routine teaching activities and uses of authentic materials – were employed. The most predominant factor leading to the use of these two macrostrategies was a concern about feasibility.

Conclusions: This study hence suggests the need for a new line of research on strategies that are primarily instructional and secondarily motivational, as well as further studies that take the feasibility of motivational strategies into greater consideration.     

The Last Step of Reason?

Abstract

Juridical ethics, as they have been called, are not a sufficient foundation of moral education. This has a richer base in visional and character ethics. Moral education requires a shift in focus from reversible thinking to ‘narrative’. Religious education has a necessary contribution to make in terms of integrating vision and of methodology.     

Aristotelian action research: its value for studying character education in schools

This article explores what it means for teachers to engage in and evaluate students’ character education, by examining the connections between action research and Aristotelian virtue ethics. These connections are explored in two ways. Firstly, the article examines what perspective action research has on how moral education, understood in an Aristotelian way, can be implemented and evaluated. While character education may be hot in educational theory, academic advances have not always reached teachers, heads of school, policy-makers and politicians. Secondly, a specifically Aristotelian approach to action research is explored that may help teachers to understand how action research about character education in schools can best be conducted. After a comparison of the three major action research paradigms, ‘Aristotelian action research’ is described as a kind of dialogical enquiry that contributes to the growth of teachers’ practical wisdom, which, in turn, has an effect on children’s character development. The article ends with suggestions as to how research about character education could be improved if we shift our attention from making character programmes more ‘effective’ to extending and refining teachers’ own practical wisdom and virtue.