My Character Education Philosophy
Lauren A. Vader
Concordia University
Abstract
In the first part of this paper, I discuss how one’s image of human persons determines their educational philosophy. As I view human persons as essentially spiritual, my character education philosophy tends toward focusing on the nurturing of the soul through the transcendent ideas of truth, beauty and goodness, with a special emphasis on empathy and perspective taking. Of the three aspects of character education, I believe there to be a hierarchy. Moral character comes first- and is the most important to me of the three characters - while performance character and civic character follow behind, in that they both follow under the category of virtue. …show more content…
I believe that human beings are essentially spiritual, with souls that need nurturing. Beauty, truth and goodness, give the spirit a realm in which to move, be itself, and have legitimacy; they are the virtues that protect the soul from pain and suffering. Moral education – the study of what is good - is therefore, the most important to me of all three character aspects we have studied in this course. Of all moral virtues, I believe empathy to be that underlying good that can lead to all other good. As Seider points out “empathy is a multidimensional construct with both cognitive and affective components. The cognitive dimension of empathy is an individual’s ability to engage in perspective taking – to view situations from a third-person perspective by taking account of one’s own and other’s subjective perspectives. The affective component of empathy includes feelings of warmth, compassion and concern for others” (Seider, 2012, p. 79). Empathy is a powerful virtue. It gives one the ability to feel what another is experiencing to the point that impersonal you, becomes personal I. It is a force that drives us to act in love. Lickona (2014) perfectly defines moral character as “our capacity to love” (p.3). If we can empathize with other persons, then our actions will reflect that through fairness, generosity, trustworthiness and …show more content…
Those seem to be the most common deficits in children with autism because they struggle to correctly interpret other’s expressions. To help with this, I present my students with multiple pictures of children showing different expressions, and together we work on identifying them. Sometimes I will utilize puppets to demonstrate various types of effect; and I will use prompts, modeling and reinforcements to teach my students to perform empathy responses. Empathy is first a conditioned response, then I work to generalize it by using classmates and teachers in real, every day, settings. It is once we get to the generalization phase that my first action plan comes
Lauren A. Vader
Concordia University
Abstract
In the first part of this paper, I discuss how one’s image of human persons determines their educational philosophy. As I view human persons as essentially spiritual, my character education philosophy tends toward focusing on the nurturing of the soul through the transcendent ideas of truth, beauty and goodness, with a special emphasis on empathy and perspective taking. Of the three aspects of character education, I believe there to be a hierarchy. Moral character comes first- and is the most important to me of the three characters - while performance character and civic character follow behind, in that they both follow under the category of virtue. …show more content…
I believe that human beings are essentially spiritual, with souls that need nurturing. Beauty, truth and goodness, give the spirit a realm in which to move, be itself, and have legitimacy; they are the virtues that protect the soul from pain and suffering. Moral education – the study of what is good - is therefore, the most important to me of all three character aspects we have studied in this course. Of all moral virtues, I believe empathy to be that underlying good that can lead to all other good. As Seider points out “empathy is a multidimensional construct with both cognitive and affective components. The cognitive dimension of empathy is an individual’s ability to engage in perspective taking – to view situations from a third-person perspective by taking account of one’s own and other’s subjective perspectives. The affective component of empathy includes feelings of warmth, compassion and concern for others” (Seider, 2012, p. 79). Empathy is a powerful virtue. It gives one the ability to feel what another is experiencing to the point that impersonal you, becomes personal I. It is a force that drives us to act in love. Lickona (2014) perfectly defines moral character as “our capacity to love” (p.3). If we can empathize with other persons, then our actions will reflect that through fairness, generosity, trustworthiness and …show more content…
Those seem to be the most common deficits in children with autism because they struggle to correctly interpret other’s expressions. To help with this, I present my students with multiple pictures of children showing different expressions, and together we work on identifying them. Sometimes I will utilize puppets to demonstrate various types of effect; and I will use prompts, modeling and reinforcements to teach my students to perform empathy responses. Empathy is first a conditioned response, then I work to generalize it by using classmates and teachers in real, every day, settings. It is once we get to the generalization phase that my first action plan comes