Summarizes results of a pilot study to determine how eight moral values stated by former Education Secretary William Bennett are learned by students in classrooms. According to students, teachers must follow the rules themselves to teach character education effectively. Respect is best taught through a hidden curriculum of modeling and quality…

A group of staff and parents in a Pennsylvania community developed a district strategic plan stressing character education. The original study group found three reasons for involving schools, including schools' historical commitment to character development, recognition of values education as an intrinsic part of teaching, and increasing crime and…

The Personal Responsibility Education Process (PREP) is a grass-roots approach to character education that seeks to strengthen student responsibility. Instead of promoting one set of values, it helps schools rediscover their own values and reinforce them. A sampling of several Missouri school districts illustrates the diversity of the process and…

Describes a required ethics course designed for juniors and seniors at a small Connecticut boarding school. Students explore the ethics of care and justice, examine ethical assumptions behind the school's disciplinary system, consider a series of dilemmas, and discuss complex topics such as abortion, euthanasia, and racism. A sidebar outlines…

According to a former junior high school teacher, eighth graders--inquisitive and opinionated--are not too young to grasp the impact of the Holocaust. This teacher went beyond "The Diary of Anne Frank" to push deeply into topics of genocide, racism, prejudice, and persecution. Students approached this discussion by considering examples of human…

For at-risk students, opportunities to help others may provide a way to break the devastating cycle of failure--to substitute caring for anger and replace low self-esteem with feelings of worth. Educators are advised to select genuine (and optional) opportunities, choose tasks matching students' abilities, avoid praising helpers publicly, and have…

From making holiday decorations for a local nursing home to serving food at a homeless shelter, students at Friends Academy in upstate New York participate in service activities designed to match their level of social awareness. Maurice Howard's sidebar shows how Maryland high schoolers participate in a state-mandated service-learning program that…

Although at-risk children develop more problems than the general population, many become healthy, competent young adults. Resilient children usually possess social competence, problem-solving skills, autonomy, and a sense of purpose and future. Families, schools, and communities protecting children from adversity are characterized by caring and…

Summarizes major trends in character education in U.S. classrooms, beginning with an early twentieth-century "Children's Morality Code," and progressing through 1950s moral and values education, three past decades of drug and sex education programs, and current efforts to develop valid program evaluation methods. The next step is developing a…

Claims of character educators must be reexamined. Enthralled at the prospect of reducing violence, crime, and other irresponsible behavior, untutored readers may assume a direct relationship between values and behavior. If the public enthusiastically endorses programs based on this fallacious assumption, the resulting disappointment may doom all…

Concern over low student achievement led to creation of a community-based Maryland mentoring program for at-risk African-American students. Mentoring was successfully used for teaching and coaching, strengthening racial harmony, promoting social change, ensuring equal education, and creating opportunities for personal empowerment. By portraying…

By borrowing from pop culture, New York City teacher created Trading Heroes, "values clarification course" drawing on powerful hero phenomenon and students' creativity. Following a discussion of heroic qualities, students select one or more personal heroes as subjects for trading cards they will produce themselves. Students make the cards by…

The Toughlove network, which currently includes over 500 parent support groups, is comprised of parents and teen offspring on the verge of suspension. Parents and children attend separate meetings; parents learn limit-setting and supportive behavior; and troubled teens learn to make some difficult changes and accept responsibility for their…

Growing up in a highly eroticized environment, children are preoccupied with sex in developmentally distorted ways and increasingly likely to act out their sexual impulses. Abstinence is the only totally effective way to avoid pregnancy, AIDS, and other sexually transmitted diseases. Chastity education promises great success through promotion of…

Likona's critique of comprehensive sex education oversimplifies values instruction and ignores complexities of sex and reproduction, human growth, gender roles, intimacy, and social and cultural influences. Ideological approaches to sex education fail because they ignore the realities of everyday living. (Contains 27 references.) (MLH)