Seven out of 10 high-school students cheated on an exam.
Thirty-eight percent admitted to stealing something from a
store.
Seven out of 10 high-school students cheated on an exam.
Thirty-eight percent admitted to stealing something from a store.
These are the results of a survey released in October that examined the moral standards of more than 12,000 middle- and high-school students.
Some educators are worried that personal interests are triumphing over the common good. With this in mind, Steve Johnson developed the Character-Based Literacy program that began in San Benito County this fall.
“The beauty of this program is that what (Johnson) has been able to do is to take what we already know we must do, which is basic literacy, and find parallels through the core literature that is recommended,” said Lorna Gilbert, vice principal and special education director with the San Benito County Office of Education.
The Character-Based Literacy (CBL) program integrates education about values and ethics into a school’s language-arts curriculum. The program is offered by the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University where Johnson is director of school programs. CBL is in place in more than 200 schools, including seven counties in California.
The San Benito County Office of Education has committed to bringing the program to the county, namely in the form of the four local alternative schools. These include Santa Ana Opportunity School, San Andreas Continuation High School, Pinnacles Community School and the county court school. There are about 360 students attending the four schools.
“Students in alternative education need some guidance, some instruction in ways of taking care of business,” Gilbert said. “It’s the philosophy of looking at responsibility and respect, self direction. … We have an obligation to help students who, for various reasons in their lives, maybe are behind in some basic skills.”
CBL is instituted in language arts because it is the only required subject students take every year throughout school – kindergarten through high school.
The program works by taking tools already used to teach based on California’s standards, and using those tools to discuss values and ethics within the state’s parameters.
“Plays, poems, and novels are used not only to teach reading and writing, but also to have students reflect on and interiorize values such as integrity, self-control and respect,” according to the Markkula Center Web site.
For instance, while students are studying a particular novel, the teacher will focus on a specific unit. For “The Outsiders,” the unit is responsibility, for “To Kill a Mockingbird,” self control and courage, and for “Of Mice and Men,” change and effort. The CBL program offers a timetable for such books with skills to teach and values to focus on.
Gilbert said the county is focusing CBL on eighth- through 12th-graders.
The program works well with the local alternative schools because it fits the philosophy of the schools, Gilbert said. Core beliefs at San Andreas High School and Santa Ana Opportunity School include CBL themes like responsibility, respect and self control.
While Gilbert said she does not think ethics are missing from today’s youth, she does think there are many things to distract people from doing what’s right.
“This age is a time of trying to figure out who you are, what you believe, trying to balance what you believe with circumstances in life,” she said. “I think that there are a lot of distractions in life and I think the more students are guided in who they are and figuring out what they believe, the better chance they have of having more opportunities provided to them.”
Schools do pay to participate in the CBL program, but Johnson would not discuss the cost publicly. He said that many schools and counties fund the program in different ways. The cost covers workshops for staff development and assisted curriculum.
Johnson began CBL five years ago, designing it for alternative schools as opposed to traditional schools.
“Alternative students are those who really have fundamental needs,” he said. “… What are available to these students are remedial kinds of products that are dumbed down. This never gets you the kind of skills you need to move on.”
Johnson said he would like to see the program expand nationwide so kids who move around a lot could see some consistency and coherence across the different schools.
To view the results of the survey on moral ethics released in October, visit http:// www.josephsoninstitute.org/Survey2002/survey2002-pressrelease.htm. To learn more on the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, visit www.scu.edu/ethics.
