Salam Omar AliDoctorate of Education Candidate

The British University

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Character Education’s Impact on

Students’ Morality and Character Development

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Outline

•Definition of character and character education

• The importance of CE

• The current situation of CE in the Arab world

•What should be done?

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Character can be defined as a set of personal qualities and traits that guide people’s conduct. It is worth mentioning before defining character education that character education can be referred to with different terms, such as, moral reasoning, moral/values education, the teaching of virtues.

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Character has three interrelated parts: moral knowing, moral feeling, and moral behavior. Good character consists of knowing the good, desiring the good, and doing the good habits of the mind, habits of the heart, and habits of action.

(Lickona ,1989)

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WHAT IS CHARACTER EDUCATION?

Character education is the big umbrella that covers all teaching and learning that take place for the sake of character development. However, educators and parents believe that it is crucial to educate children to adhere to the morals and values of the society.

Character EducationCharacter education is the deliberate effort to help students understand, care about and act upon core ethical values such as caring, honesty, fairness, courage responsibility and respect for themselves and for others. (Lickona, Schaps, & Lewis, 2008)

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One of the most important aims of schools is to develop children intellectually and morally to be good members in their societies.

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Different education’s polices have been checked in various countries in the Arab world, and the results showed that education in the Arab countries pays good attention to the students’ development.

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CONTINUED……

However, there is not any clear reference to CE as a means of character development. Therefore, it is worth introducing this term for all educators in the Arab area.

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WHY CHARACTER/MORAL EDUCATION?

Moral education is seen as a necessity for the current generation to have a solid foundation of values and ethics especially in the light of globalization and the effect of media and technologies on their personalities.

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Character education can be very useful; as leaning different values and morals such as honesty, respect, responsibility and self-discipline can be effective in enhancing students’ abilities to focus on themselves and make the right decision as they relate what they learn at school with their own real life situations.

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Character education has a positive influence not only on students’ characters, but also on their academic performance. Various studies proved that there is a correlation between character education and good academic performance.

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UNIVERSAL VALUES

When discussing teaching values, the question of whose values are to be taught is the main issue of educators. The question is “should we apply teachers’ values or parents’ values?” Or, “is there any other alternative appropriate in this case?”

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WHERE IS THE PROBLEM?

Do the educational polices in the Arab World provide students with sufficient attention and care to develop their characters?

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CONTINUED

In the light of hiring teachers from different countries, and different nationalities and backgrounds, do we really provide them with the right training they need to be good role models for UAE students?

Thank you