Character Education: The Missing Ingredient of Preservice Teacher Education Programs.

Research indicates that the overwhelming majority of preservice teacher education programs in the United States do not offer significant instruction in the methodology of teaching character, morals, values, and virtue. Consequently, upon graduation these beginning teachers are ill-equipped to deal with the complex social and behavioral problems that face them in today's classrooms. Future teachers need to be specifically taught how to meet the overriding goals of education: to make students both intellectually smart and morally good. The first section of the paper discusses the need for a character education curriculum, focusing on: the history of moral education; the philosophy of moral education; developmental theories regarding character education; the implications of sociological trends; and transmission of moral education. The second section focuses on foundational issues of character education, noting the benefits of integrating character education into the classroom. The third section discusses inservice character education programs. A final section discusses the two primary goals of education (helping students become intellectually smart and morally good). (Contains 12 references.) (SM)