# Character as the Aim of Education  ## Metadata - Author: [[readwise.io]] - Full Title: Character as the Aim of Education - Category: #articles - URL: https://readwise.io/reader/document_raw_content/127757651 ## Highlights ###### ID 661076445 > We propose character as the aim of education. That is to say, developing beneficial and prosocial dispositions should be prioritized over acquiring more and more facts and formulas. To elaborate, we suggest that distinct, yet overlapping goals for education can be derived from considering the multiple dimensions of character. Education should develop intellectual character, moral character, civic character, and performance character, along with the collective character of the school. Together, the four forms of personal character define what it means to be a competent, ethical, engaged, and effective adult member of society. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hm74yp62809m4qkcf8tfaksa)) - Note: This is the only education worth worrying about. Nobody will ever remember the lessons or tests, but they will act in a way they learned how to act. This is the essential piece. It’s about the actions they take in their daily lives later in life that reflect what they learned. To think this “learning” happens only within the four walls of the school is foolhardy. Kids are developed from all their interactions. ###### ID 661079449 > intellectual character. In his book of that name, Ron Ritchhart defines intellectual character as “the overarching conglomeration of habits of mind, patterns of thought, and general dispositions toward thinking that not only direct but also motivate one’s thinking-oriented pursuits” (2002: xxii). He identifies six dispositions that he sees as central to intellectual character. A person of strong intellectual character is curious, open-minded, reflective, strategic, skeptical, and truth-seeking. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hm7580cbkpqdvt01vbsa32s5)) - Note: The six characteristics of Intellectual character are meaningful, and again pertain to *actions* and *behaviors* taken. ###### ID 661081440 > In the teaching of every explicit curriculum, there is an implicit curriculum. When teaching is focused on transmitting facts, training in discrete skills, and preparing for tests, students are implicitly taught that the content itself is most important. When the content is taught in a more inductive, open, exploratory manner, when the teacher models and encourages inquiry, open-mindedness, critical thinking, and curiosity, then intellectual character can be developed along with content knowledge. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hm75j70wwxsar54682753e3s)) - Note: Student driven learning is so valuable because it places the emphasis on intellectual character, rather than on intellectual learning. This is why students were so successful with it at Tanana Middle School: They were developing and being modeled intellectual character, rather than being modeled that the content is the best thing. ###### ID 661083825 > From the perspective of intellectual character, intelligence isn’t primarily an innate ability to master content; intelligence is a disposition to apply one’s ability amid the complexities of life. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hm75nt663jgj5rc27vs0x04w)) - Note: [[wisdom]] [[intelligence]] ###### ID 661080790 > Developing intellectual character can’t be done directly; it can’t be accomplished apart from learning content. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hm75d5x7vz6w56n1vd9sytas)) - Note: This is the real challenge with character education in each of these four areas. It’s harder to teach because it is not taught directly. This is truly the power of lifelong learning—you can continually gain new information and grow intellectually and you don’t *need* school to do that. But if you don’t develop intellectual character, it’s going to be very hard to think that you could learn from anyone. ###### ID 661084290 > The goal is to develop a disposition to seek goodness, not inculcate a specific list of preferred virtues. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hm75rgw51gppqb6yxhr7qw6g)) - Note: Further evidence of my idea that the school should not prescribe virtues, but rather help every student define her or her own values. [[define your values]] ###### ID 661085272 > Jefferson argued that a nation could preserve and protect the inalienable rights of all only through the deliberation of virtuous, free, and educated citizens. Despite his own truncated view of who was entitled to the label citizen, Jefferson’s core insight into the central role of public schools has inspired education theorists ever since. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hm75zxg7j4vwxbj8r6b7psa8)) - Note: We would be wise to consider the people Jefferson was arguing to educate (including himself), were not prepared nor educated well enough to see that slavery and counting blacks not as citizens was wrong. ###### ID 661084886 > On one point, there is unanimous agreement: We > don’t want to graduate idiots. Unfortunately, the word has lost much of its original meaning. In ancient Greece, an idiot was a person who was uninvolved in the community. Idiots were people who sought their own private good and didn’t participate actively in the cultural or political institutions of the nation (Parker 2003). ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hm75xj0535zjq4a6w4xn49s6)) ###### ID 661087247 > TABLE 1. > Dimensions of Personal Character and the School Culture That Supports Them > Personal Character School Character Intellectual Character > Culture of Thinking > Moral Character Civic Character > Culture of Love and Justice > Culture of Service and Engagement > Performance Character Culture of Quality and Excellence ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hm76chdb1ecnyechc8zx14yr)) - Note: How to get character in schools