Physical Education as a Prerequisite for the Possibility of Human Virtue

This article examines the role of physical education in the process of moral education, and argues that physical education is a necessary prerequisite for the possibility of human virtue. This discussion is divided into four parts. First, I examine the nature of morality and moral decision-making. Drawing on the moral theories presented by Plato, Aristotle and Kant, I argue that morality is connected with reason and the attainment of objectively good goals. Second, I examine the role of moral education in helping individuals to cultivate a virtuous character state. I outline the approaches to moral education taken by Plato, Aristotle and Kant—dialectic, dogmatic and catechistic—and examine the ability of each approach to develop the appropriate moral disposition within individuals. Third, I examine the cultivation of this disposition by considering the connection between virtue and happiness and the possibility of producing an individual who is both virtuous and happy through moral education. Fourth, although there is disagreement about the means of moral education, I argue that there must be agreement concerning one necessary component of moral education: physical education. Physical education, while connected to non-moral exercises, allows individuals to develop the strength to become apathetic to bodily desires (e.g. the desire to obtain pleasure or pursue pain), desires that lead them away from virtue.     

A ‘narrowing of inquiry’ in American moral psychology and education

We explore the possibility that a priori philosophical commitments continue to result in a narrowing of inquiry in moral psychology and education where theistic worldviews are concerned. Drawing from the theories of Edward L. Thorndike and John Dewey, we examine naturalistic philosophical commitments that influenced the study of moral psychology and moral education in the USA. We then address the question of whether these foundational naturalistic commitments can be rendered as compatible with theistic commitments, using both modernist and postmodern philosophical approaches that might be viewed as attempts at compatibility. Arguing that these attempts at compatibility fail, we draw from contemporary approaches to moral psychology and education in order to illustrate how naturalistic commitments might prevent these approaches from adequately addressing theistic understandings and experiences of morality.     

Moral education the CHARACTERplus Way®

Traditional approaches to character education have been viewed by many educators as an attempt to establish self control within students to habituate them to prescribed behaviour and as nothing more than a ‘bits‐and‐pieces’ approach to moral education. While this is accurate for many character education programmes, integrated multi‐dimensional character education embraces both moral education and character formation. Students learn to identify and process social conventions within the core values of the school and community and have opportunities to learn practical reasoning skills in schools where character education is integrated into all aspects of the schooling process. Reported in this article are several studies, including two large‐scale experimental investigations, that show integrated character education results in an improved school environment, student pro‐social and moral behaviour, and reading and maths test scores. Schools become more caring communities; student discipline referrals drop significantly, particularly in areas related to bullying behaviour; and test scores in moderately achieving schools increase nearly 50%.     

论德育与心理健康教育的关系

从人类历史发展的角度看,德育为一定的社会服务,是社会的附庸;心理健康教育为“人“服务,是人的附庸.当前,德育和心理健康教育在我国的结合既是一种必然,也是一种偶然.心理健康教育将推动德育的更新,但不能取代德育.     

马克思主义人学视界下的德育新探三题

用马克思主义人学视角透视德育,是指整体地理解和把握德育,使人真正呈现在德育中,使真实的人、大写的人突显于德育之中。用马克思主义人学的视界考量德育,需要从德育对象、人与社会以及道德的关系、德育思维方式三个方面反思当前德育理论和实践存在的问题。     

Moral Decision‐Making,Religious Reinforcement and Some Educational Implications

Abstract

There is a fundamental gap between people's assertions as to what is right or wrong and their actual behaviour. This has been traditionally attributed to akrasia or weakness of the will. This paper examines this concept, and the related positive concept of KRAT, and considers what moral education can do about it. Claims by R.B. Braithwaite and others that religious traditions can provide reinforcement are examined and attention is directed to some important qualifications. The implications for moral education are considered, and it is argued that attempts by moral educationists to get to grips with this weakness must involve their own participation in moral debate and in decisions concerning the moral ethos of society.

Anyone who observes human behaviour through moral spectacles soon discovers that there is a significant gap between people's assertions as to what is right or wrong and their actual behaviour. This gap is traditionally attributed to akrasia or weakness of the will. Any attempt to get to grips with moral education must (a) take cognizance of this phenomena and (b) consider what, if anything, can be done about it. In this paper I aim to do three things: (i) to draw attention to some significant factors associated with akrasia, (ii) to explore claims that religious traditions can help to overcome such weakness and (iii) to draw some general conclusions from these points for moral education.     

An assessment framework for inclusive education: integrating assessment approaches

Teachers committed to inclusive education have the potential to revolutionise pedagogical and assessment practices within regular classrooms simply because students with high needs challenge traditional assumptions about what it means ‘to learn’ and ‘to assess’. This creates opportunities for teachers to find creative ways to ascertain what and how a child learns, and how these assessment results can be communicated to the child, parents, the school and funding bodies to enable further learning. This paper explores diverse assessment practices including criterion-based, normative, ipsative and self-assessment, with both formative and summative functions, reported as being used by teachers in New Zealand who teach students with high needs. These multiple approaches can be integrated into learning stories to ‘narrate’ student learning. An assessment framework is introduced to support teachers to appreciate the functionality of an integrated assessment approach to document student learning and outcomes, arguably a framework applicable for all learners.     

Changing Ideopolitical Emphases in Moral Education in China: An Analysis of the CCP Central Committee Documents

With the understanding that moral education is interpreted as both ideological and political education in China, this paper attempts to look at the ideopolitical emphases in government moral education documents since the adoption of the open policy in 1978. The analysis will be focused on three particular aspects, namely (1) the changing perception of the role of moral education, (2) the changing emphasis on what moral education should achieve, and (3) how such change of emphases would reflect the changing social and political circumstances in China. In sum, this paper argues that government documents on moral education can be a significant indicator for tracking social transition in China.     

TEACHING TO UNLEARN COMMUNITY IN ORDER TO MAKE A CLAIM TO COMMUNITY

In this essay Duck‐Joo Kwak explores a moral perfectionist approach to citizenship education, which is distinct from liberal and communitarian models. One of educational challenges to this approach is how to cultivate our students' sense of membership, which is shaped by a thick sense of the good life, while being not merely compatible with but open to the pluralist perspective. Kwak maintains that what is required for this form of membership to society or community is our future citizens' ability to engage in highly self‐reflexive philosophical reflection on the human condition; such reflection gives them the skills necessary to live up to the tension between different selves of diverse origins or within a divided self. Examining Stanley Cavell's view of political education as an exemplar of the moral perfectionist approach to citizenship education, Kwak shows how the practice of his ordinary language philosophy can be a good way to cultivate this ability by teaching us how to “speak for others” by way of “speaking for oneself.”     

Education in Crisis: A Value-Based Model of Education Provides Some Guidance

Modern education is in a state of global crisis partially because of the absence of a value-based design of its strategic functions. Education affects the whole spectrum of human values, namely, creative, experiential, aesthetic, material, instrumental, ethical, social, and spiritual values. A student whose educational experience involves this portfolio of human values will emerge with a virtuous integrated personality (VIP) as it combines both intellectual and moral virtues (Aristotle. 1988). The search for excellence through education can also be realized if education is value-based, for education is also a moral enterprise in addition to being an academic enterprise. If education imparts this portfolio of core values it will also enhance the meaning of one's education, commitment to academic tasks, civic duties, and the essentials of an ethical culture. These observations are expressed in a number of focal perspectives.     

On the Meeting of the Moral and the Aesthetic in Literary Education

For millennia it has been discussed whether literature appropriately can or should be used in education for a moral purpose. Taking as a premise that it can actually be educative and not merely moralising, we tackle the case made against such use, based on the claim that it would be perverting the aesthetic nature of literature as a form of art, as it would be instrumentalised. Given that this claim is based on a dichotomy between an aesthetically educative approach and a morally educative approach to literature, we examine how warranted such a formulation of this dichotomy is. We argue that, at least on some occasions, those two educative approaches to literature—the aesthetic and the moral—can actually be mutually reinforcing in such a way that aesthetic appreciation will suffer if the moral is not deeply examined with both mind and heart, and vice versa. This does not mean, however, that this relation of mutual contribution will always obtain in a neat way. It may actually be the case that just in a few cases, and only if carried out in a pedagogically appropriate manner, it will be correct to use literature with a morally educative purpose.     

From the editor

It is argued that much of the ineffectiveness of schools in producing change is due to the educational psychologists’ moral relativity, identified with an “industrial psychologist”; model. Such relativity can result in defining educational aims in terms of “social adjustment,”; an approach that is said to have no empirical basis, or in terms of a “bag of virtues,”; an approach that is said to suffer from lack of agreement on what the virtues should be. A developmental‐philosophic strategy for defining aims of education is proposed as a solution. In this approach, the assumption is made that each later stage of moral development reflects a more adequate equilibration with the environment, and it therefore follows that what is at later stages is what ought to be. The universality of moral stages is documented and the stimulation of moral development in school and prison settings through a cognitive conflict procedure is illustrated.     

审视高校德育教育实践的盲点

近年来,重新审视我们所从事的德育教学实践中的盲点并探索克服障碍的新途径:第一,寻找在高校德育教学实践中对德育内涵理解上的缺失,寻求达到理论共识的新途径;第二,重新审视高校德育教师自身人格素质方面的缺陷,确立必须形成更高层次上的、与德育学科相联的德育教师的人格特质的观点;第三,了解德育过程实效较低的原因,寻找在教学实践中解决问题的方法———让互动式教学方式得以切实回归。     

A new formulation of the ethical self through kierkegaard’s notion of subjectivity: in search of a new moral education

This paper examines in detail the distinctive features of Kierkegaard’s notion of subjectivity in an attempt to find a new theoretical formulation of moral education; that is, a self-regarding—as opposed to an other-regarding—ethics of moral education. Heavily relying upon an existentialist line of ethical questioning, my aspiration underlying this investigation is not presumptuous in claiming that the self-regarding approach to moral education can—or should—compensate the other-regarding one. For it reveals an ethically non-trivial aspect of human subjectivity which has been overlooked by dominant approaches to moral education, like the moral reasoning and care-ethics models, in such a way as to suggest a way of diagnosing the moral predicament in the contemporary (Korean) society.     

深化审美教育提升德育品位

审美教育以感性教育为主，品德课教育以理性教育为主，审美教育和品德课教育在实现德育目标上是相通的。审美教育以其独特的教育方式弥补了品德课的缺憾，使学校德育体系多元性、完整性、实效性得到体现，使德育品位实现升华。美术教育是审美教育的重要组成部分，渗透德育的最佳途径之一就是美术教育。     

Education as Transformation: Formalism,Moralism and the Substantivist Alternative

The term ‘transformation’ and its cognates can be found appended to almost every key term in the contemporary educational lexicon. In educational psychology, teachers are urged to adopt the methods of ‘transformational teaching’. In adult education, the theory of ‘transformative learning’ defines the current research paradigm. Social justice educators regularly couch their consciousness-raising efforts in terms of ‘transformative pedagogy’. And in philosophy of education, pragmatists, phenomenologists, neo-Aristotelians and postmodernists alike point to the special transformative quality of education, both in the Anglo-American as well as the German-language discourses. In this essay, we argue that these various conceptions of transformative education can be organised under two theoretical categories, each with its own distinctive understanding of and approach to creating transformative educational experiences: formalism and moralism. In the first two sections, we discuss the characteristic qualities of these two approaches and point to several problems that arise within them. Drawing on recent developments in the philosophy of language and moral psychology, we then advance a ‘substantivist’ alternative to the formalistic and moralistic approaches, which characterises the transformative experience as a process of renarrativation with two experiential moments: articulation and aspiration. Substantivism is an attractive approach to transformative education, we argue in the final section, because it avoids the problems that arise in the formalistic and moralistic conceptions while providing resources for capturing what is essential to transformative experience in the educational process.     

The Professional Approach to Moral Education

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to offer a definition of the professional approach to moral education and to contrast it with what will here be called the commonsense approach. The labels ‘professional’ and ‘commonsense’ are to be taken as evaluatively neutral. They are chosen simply for convenience; what is important is the two conceptually distinct ways of approaching moral education to which they refer. As will be emphasized later, they are not alternative conceptions of moral education. The commonsense approach, in some form, is necessarily part of moral education in any context; the question is whether, in schools, we move beyond it and become professional as well..     

小学品德课堂活动教学的课型与策略研究

小学品德作为一门综合性的活动课程,活动教学是其重要载体和途径。小学品德课堂活动教学主要有主体参与、感知体验和协作探究等三种典型课型,教师只有针对不同课型分别采取不同的活动教学策略,才能寓教育于活动之中,将品德课程的目标落到实处。     

人性教育：大学德育创新的重要途径

人性教育与大学德育之间在理论目标、内容特征、教育效果等方面具有内在一致性,重视人性教育有助于优化大学德育效能、促进大学德育的创新。以人性教育的视角看,创新大学德育可以通过以下途径：激发道德追求,感受至善之美;关注价值体认,提升生命意义;培养民族情感,展现人性魅力。     

论道德教育的历史演进与发展趋向——以知识型为视角

目前人们的道德及道德教育状况并不乐观,德育改革似已是大势所趋.然而,当前的研究缺乏从纵向的历史的宏观的层面去探讨道德教育改革的合理性和发展趋向,而知识与知识型对教育包括道德教育的影响不言而喻,因此,有必要从知识型的角度对道德教育与知识型的关系试做历史性的分析和梳理,以历史为逻辑论证道德教育改革的合理性,并在此基础上指出德育改革方向.