Nermina Lamadema

Practical Applications of Academic Abstract Concepts in Character Education and 

Comparative Analysis of the Worked Samples Designed for a Whole Spectrum Curriculum to Cover Primary to Highs School Range

 The models of Character Education that are available to us provide clearly defined, coherent educational plans to assist teachers concerned with the developments of ethics of their students. Researchers in this field have studied whether and at what age is a child cognitively mature to be able to grasp ethical concepts that are delivered to them and have come up with an age specific tailored programme of delivery which we hope to present in this paper. 

That character can be caught and taught is an important paradigm of these models which is translated into practice through a specifically set out operational objectives in the format of pedagogical plans and carefully thought out lesson plans. As already mentioned briefly in the Talk 1 we will in more detail evaluate the keystones of the models we researched in most details namely The Jubilee Centre based at the university of Birmingham, the University of Leeds Department of Education and more commercialized programmes of The Value Based Education and Human Values Foundation. 

The stated goals of the Jubilee Centre are promoting, building and strengthening character virtues in the contexts of the family, school, community, university, professions, voluntary organizations and the wider workplace. According to the Centre research the character is constituted by the virtues, such as courage, justice, honesty, compassion, self-discipline, gratitude, generosity and humility and these are critical to individual excellence. They contribute to societal flourishing, can be exercised within all human context and are educable. From theory this is put into practice through a specifically designed primary and secondary study programmes, and we will for the purpose of this paper assess them in more detail. This will cover how different sets of the virtues are delivered throughout the year and across different age ranges, what are the guided activities, and who are the role models used to emulate the behaviour if applicable.  The paper will also assess the curriculum enrichment initiatives across a selection of academic subjects as well as supplementary and intervention programmes which are delivered to further reaffirm and develop the understanding of the character virtue ethics and to target young people that might have missed out on the ethic education in the past. 

This paper will attempt to make a comparative analysis between the Knightly Virtues literacy package developed by the Jubilee and another similar literacy pilot project developed by Leeds University -Narnian Values. This programme has been designed with Christian Cardinal Virtues as its backbone and as such is more suited for the Faith Schools set up. Finally, the paper will look at commercial packages of Value based Education (VbE) and Human Foundation for Values (HVF) and the teacher resource material associated with it. 

The VbE programme emphasises on the development of universal narrative of ethics vocabulary. This is achieved through seven core components which consist of modelling of positive values by adults, the Inner Curriculum of thoughts, feelings and emotions, reflective practices with links to interpersonal neurobiology, the creation of a VbE atmosphere, both physical and emotional, the development of a VbE curriculum and its links to the wider curriculum, the development of quality leadership and the comprehensive development of an ethical vocabulary.

 Finally, we will evaluate teaching resources of HVF which is another non-denominational supplier of transformational values-themed education developed for the purpose of encouraging, promoting and developing human values in young people. The HVF have developed their SPIES program to help students enrich and nurture their life essential skills through Spiritual, Physical, Intellectual, Emotional and Social components.  

The emphasis throughout the paper will be made on several key aspects: 

1.     How is the programme translated from theory to practice?

2.     What are the specific pedagogical tools that are available for each of the programmes?

3.     Is there evidence that they work or that schools find them useful?

4.     What are the similarities in the design of the programme specific tools

What are the differences between the tools and do they add to the strength or the weakness of the programme (based of course on our limited knowledge and experience of these models)