Authority or Majority?

I'm posting old Members' Library Home Page articles here to serve as an archive. This one was first published April 17, 2009, at http://members.characterfirst.com.

Luke Kallberg

A major criticism of character training programs has been that they are authoritarian in their presentation of desired behaviors¹. I remember when Character First! was originally adapted for public schools–the quality of Obedience was the most controversial, and this has not changed.

The alternative to an authority–based program (“this is what the experts think”) is a majority–based program (“this is what most people agree on”). All justifications for character or ethics training can be seen as forms or combinations of these two thoughts.

Majority­– (or “democratically–“) based ethics programs are gaining popularity due to the realization that people, in practice, pick up their personal ethical codes in an organic, relational way, not simply from an instructor or a book². We don’t hear in a class that truthfulness is good, then flip an internal switch to never lie again. Real life is more complicated than that, and relationships are a big part of that complexity.

But is this really an argument against moral instruction? No, it’s simply a long-winded rephrasing of the old truism: walk your talk. The Character First! “program” does not simply entail reading a bulletin or web page. Resources like the Members’ Library facilitate connection and relationship between people as they figure out what these principles mean on a daily basis.

• Do one of the activities from the kids section with your children.
• Hold an office brainstorming exercise on how to integrate the key concepts­­­–or what may be some different key concepts for your organization.
• Award a prize each month to whoever can present the story of some other “hero” who demonstrates the current quality.

References

¹Cooley, A (2008). Legislating character: Moral education in North Carolina’s schools. Educational Studies, 43, p.188-205.

²Jones, C. (2005). Character, virtues, and physical education. European Physical Education Review, 11(2) p.139-151.

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Luke Kallberg manages website content for the Character Training Institute.