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The Socratic Approach to Character Education

David H. Elkind and Freddy Sweet, Ph.D. This classical technique leads students to recognize contradictions between values they avow and the choices they make -- and shows them that they have the power to choose. Is it really possible to teach young people good character? And, if so, what’s the best approach to take? As producers of character education and guidance videos, we’ve pondered these questions for many years. If you believe, as we do, that character is best expressed in...

Ethical Reasoning and the Art of Classroom Dialogue

INTRODUCTION When we were students, many of us had the following experience: our teacher would start to lead a classroom "discussion," but we had a sinking suspicion that it was just a sham. All she wanted from the class was for us to fill in the blanks of her pre-programmed curriculum. She would fish around from student to student until she got the answer she was looking for. So we kids had to make a choice between sincerely expressing our...

Reaching At-Risk Students Through Video

"What if you saw an elderly woman in a department store unknowingly drop a $50 bill and walk away. What would you do?" This is one of many hypothetical situations we posed to several diverse groups of middle school students across the country during the production of our public television series "Big Changes, Big Choices". "I'd keep it," one boy said right away. A girl looked at him disdainfully and asked, "What if that was your grandmother?" The boy shrugged...