Character education
Introduction
Character education comprises all explicit and implicit learning processes that inculcate virtues and other personal strengths in young learners. Students ought to be empowered to make wise decisions. Such decisions include determining their future careersor choosing between existing alternatives. The students also need to be trained on how to innovate new solutions when presented with a dilemma. Thus, character education facilitates the development of a student’s practical wisdom and good which equips them with the capacity to make intelligent choices. Agreeably, a character enhancing curriculum influences different aspects of a student’s life. Besides enhancing their well-being, it also enhances their interpersonal relationships as posited by XXX. Therefore, schools and policymakers should aim at institutionalizing character-based curriculum due to its direct and indirect benefits. To them, the curriculum should be used as a tool to impact academic performance and institutional culture. However, the implementation of such a curriculum demands the input of school leaders. The success of such programs requires capable institutional leadership which is why this research project seeks to understand how leadership affects the successfulcharacter development curriculum implementation.
Rationale
As XXX observes, it is incumbent upon principals to improve their institution’s output quality. According to him, quality is measured in terms of student empowerment, moral conduct, and academic performance. As such, the principal’s effectiveness matters in the process of implementing character education programs. On the other hand, the principal’s effectiveness depends on their leadership behaviors and style. A teacher’s performance depends on the principal’s leadership style. Therefore, when principals motivate their teachers, they attend class and execute their mandates. On their part, the teachers work hard to develop themselves, which in turn results in a positive impact on their student’s growth. Therefore, experts are trying to establish a functional principal leadership model to improve the quality of school education, including teacher performance.The main activity carried out by the school is learning activities. Instructional leadership becomes a critical leadership model to be applied by the principal. Instructional leadership is an action that is carried out to develop a productive and satisfying work environment for the teacher, and ultimately able to create increased student learning conditions.
In exercising instructional leadership practices, the principal must play a role in the good management of the curriculum. Positive academic performance and instructional leadership practices should focus on the practices that have been put in place to improve the performance of students in schools. The principal must exercise instructional leadership practices by shaping a vision of the positive performance of the school and students.Instructional leadership entails all the efforts made by principals to lead teachers to teach better, which in turn improve the student’s performance and character development. Schools, as educational organizations, will also face change. The change includes changes in people, structure, or technology. Changes faced by the organization include changes in environmental elements, values, and resources. Change leadership can improve team reflection on the results of its performance and focus on efforts to avoid mistakes and to develop the organization. Change leadership is the behavior of the principal as a leader who is more focused on driving education and education personnel in making continuous positive changes to improve the quality of learning.
Spiritual leadership encapsulates the installation of values, attitudes, and behaviors required to motivatethe leaders. The call to duty also allows them to encourage other intrinsically. Spiritual leadership aims to motivate and inspire employees through the creation of a vision and culture based on altruistic values to produce staffs who have organizational commitment and productivity. The quality of teacher performance is the teachers’ quality in carrying out their primary tasks, that is education and learning.Supervision of teachers will provide professional development, which will help the students indirectly for the better performance of the school and students. A principal who embraces instructional leadership practices will ensure a good climate hospitable to education. Additionally, the principal will exercise instructional leadership practice by allowing both teachers and students to put learning in their daily activities and this will lead to the positive performance of school and students
Programs that can improve teacher performance in teaching are the management of classroom management and continuous learning assessment. The performance of the instructor during the learning process involves preparing lesson plans, learning, reviewing the learning process and its outcomes and making subsequent improvements on identified weaknesses. Teacher performance does not arise automatically, but needs to be identified, facilitated, and developed and maintained to achieve school goals. As the person at the top of the institution’s leadership hierarchy, the principal needs to understand all the causal factors of of teacher and student performance. With these, they can formulate mentoring initiatives that will improve their performances even further.Undoubtedly, such initiatives prepare students to face the future since it makes them better leaders.
XXX, like manycounselors, educators, and behaviorists agree thatpositive outcomes in an institution result from the successful implementation of character development curricula. The most notable aspect of character development is that it helps regulate students’thoughts and conduct. As a result, they get empowered to pursue individual achievements. For this reason, some scholars such as XXX described the character-based curriculum as moral education or the inculcation of soft skills. Other common terms include service-learning and life skills education. Since it focuses on the moral conduct of students, a character development curriculum alters the expectations and cultures within the institution, which results in positive social and academic outcomes. Therefore, policymakers and school principals should aim at including a character development curriculum in their mainstream curricula to tap the identified social results.
Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory parallels with the social implications character development curriculumexemplifies. However, there is a high level of inquiry around the change in academic student performance experiences with the establishment of a character development curriculum.Instructional leadership model has both a direct and indirect effect on school effectiveness perceived through the impact of school administrators’ leadership roles Many studies have been conducted regarding the overall increase in student well-being after the intervention of character development with research focused throughout elementary, middle, and high schools. Increasing the character strengths of urban originating learners is only possible through participating in a character development curriculum. In return, the students get to flourish socially and academically. Some of the anticipated changes in these students include the development of perseverance traits, improved performance, ethical conduct, character reasoning, academic integrity, and interpersonal connectedness. Besides, they get the chance to participate in community care initiatives which help them learn how to relate with others resulting in social bonds.
Undoubtedly, an institution’s approach in the creation of a character development curriculum determines its success or failure. The approach also influences the preliminary implementation outcomes, adaptability by students, educators, and parents, as well as the possibility of being adapted in the long-term. As such, school principals and policymakers need to formulate visionary strategies to guarantee social and academicsuccess.Due to its many benefits, the implementation of a character development curriculum needs to be preceded by prior research. The findings should then inform the implementation plan and the key performance indicators. With these, the implementers can be guaranteed of the expected outcomes. Therefore, the leadership and skills of institutional leaders matter in the effectiveness of character development implementation plans.
Review of the Literature
As Agboola and Tsai assert, periodic review of the character education plan process is crucial to ascertain the fidelity of teachers involved. Agboola and Tsai used qualitative data to determine whether instructors were well equipped with the right skill set to help learners in the character-based curriculum. In particular, the researchers sought to establish whether the teachers could impart skills that would help steer the learners’ social and academic learning needs. Agboola and Tsai justify the use of qualitative and quantitative actors by demonstrating how it helped shape the program. According to them, character education helps instructors meet their students’ emotional and social needs.TheCharacter Education Program allowed students to discuss personal issues that were going on in their lives. Teachers should be equipping students with strategies that they could use to make evidence-based decisions that help them develop a sound emotional intelligence. The proliferation of character education stems from the need to enhance students’ ethical conduct. In addition to encouraging learners, character education molds the students into future leaders. Thus, principals and other stakeholders in the education sector should actualize character education due to the resultant benefits. Indeed, education policy should have a central role in the actualization of moral education. It is incumbent upon instructors, parents, and administrators to encourage students to participate in character education to obtain ethical values that are critical in their future careers.
Ng, on his part, argues that researchers continue to research the progress made by educators in understanding the role of institutions in the provision of quality character education to all children. Towards this end, he researched classroom pedagogies in Singapore. According to Ng, character education has had a significant impact on the standardization of classroom practices. The researcher identified five dominant instructional leadership practices. The first one involved the consistent practice of instructional leadership by school principals. Ng presupposes that instructional leaders result in the moral development of learners. Further, the researcher argues that school principals with an excellent range of instructional leadership skills tend to inspire their instructors to impact student lives positively. However, they assert that instructional needs to be aligned with national policies for optimum output. Therefore,school principals need to adopt the instructional goals and incorporate them with their individual beliefs and practices for maximum impact on staff, parents, and pupils.
As Asmendri argues, the success or failure of character education relies on the effectiveness of educational institutions’ leaders. According to him, school principals bear the burden of modeling performance to other teachers and to learners in the institutions they manage. For them to do this, they need to institutionalize a healthy culture, ensure that the learning environment is conducive, and keep restating the objectives of the character education program. Besides, principals should be visionary and collaborative. The school principals should also be more responsive and proactive when addressing happenings outside their schools. Other requirements include having consistency when enforcing rules, encouraging social conformance by giving social rewards. They should also summon their innovativeness in creating activities that develop their students’ prosocial skills.Xhomara, on the other hand, investigated the extent thatinstitutional leadership affected teacher-student interaction and subsequent moral orientation of learners. He operationalized the quasi-experimental research design. Structured questionnaires were adopted as Xhomara’s core research instruments. According to Xhomara, there was a positive correlation between the school principal’s leadership style and teacher-student interaction, which, in return, results in character development. Therefore, the role ofthe principal’s leadership style determines the effectiveness of teacher-student interaction and the moral development of students indirectly.
According to Goss and Holt, a general concern about the safety and success of learners in public institutions exists. Behavioral issues among elementary school students have increased when character education is not integrated into the school curricula. Thus, all stakeholders, including parents, guardians, policymakers, educators, and families, need to worry about the students’emotional, mental, and physical well-being. Notably, the rising incidences of violence are the primary concerns. For instance, as Goss and Holt posit, the recent shootings in Jonesboro and Columbine caused people to rethink the challenges with the public school system. However, Goss and Holt propose the use of character education to provide a lasting and effective solution. Towards this end, Goss and Holt sought to determine whether a character education program could positively impact attendance patterns, academic performance, or better still, reduce the prevalent cases of indiscipline within and outside schools. The researcher was premised on the belief that character education was positively correlated to student class attendance rates, decline in indiscipline incidents, and academic performance. Undoubtedly, the research was aimed to benefit the students and the society. However, the main beneficiaries would be policymakers since they could ascertain whether character education was effective in the enhancement of the moral conduct of the students. From their findings, the premise that character education results in a positive impact on attendance were validated. Goss and Holt argued that learners noted that character education was valuable. Therefore, they rarely missed classes as not to miss essential educational experiences. Besides, Goss and Holt noted that the program helped reduce cases of indiscipline among the learners since they understood well the types of behaviors that were socially accepted both within the school and in their societies. As such, Goss and Holt recommended nationwide implementation of character education to enhance academic performance, reduce indiscipline, and minimize absenteeism.
Bafadal et al., on their part, investigated the impact of change, instructional,and spiritual leadership on teachers’ performance, and. The research whose primary research instrument was the questionnaire adopted a quantitative research technique. A random sample of 46 teachers was used to obtain research data. The data was then sorted and analyzed using the multiple regression analysis techniques. According to the findings, change leadership had the most significant impact on teacher performance quality, followed by spiritual leadership, and then change leadership. In a different study, XXX investigated the role of the principals’ characters in institutional leadership. Unlike many of the researches reviewed, XXX focused on higher education. The authors also sought to highlight the specific characters in leadership that determined performance. Some of the characters surveyed included principals, morals, and ethical behavior.Towards this end, the researchers reviewed past literature in a qualitative approach. The quantitative aspect of the research, on the other hand, focused on 250 respondents whose data was collected using the questionnaire. Like XXX, the researchers used the statistical package for the social sciences to sort and analyze research data. From their findings, the character of a school principal determined their capability to deliver a character education project. In their view, where a good character was lacking in higher education management, the program would be dysfunctional, resulting in poor quality academic output. The researchers focused on Nigeria and other African countries. Therefore, institutional leaders ough to have a high level of integrity to inspire their staff and students to adopt the desired values of character education.
Ghamrawi et al. on their part explored how Lebanese school principal’s perceive character education. They also investigated the leader’s roles in its implementation. Towards this end, they sampled 153 public school principals that were drawn from district schools in Lebanon. Ghamrawi et al. aimed at offering an overview of how these leaders understood character education, their expectations about its implementation, and its ability to meet the goals and objectives of moral education. The researchers adopted a random sampling technique. However, they utilized a quantitative research design with the questionnaire as their main research instrument. The survey was comprised of 39 items that were distinctly classified into 12 domains. Notably, the first domain aimed at establishing the extent that the school principals were aware about the character education concept. The research also investigated the ability of the Lebanese principals to deliver the curriculum while also meeting the overall national educational goals. Further, the study sought to establish how the principals had integrated the program into their institutions’ goals and missions. From the findings, school principals were found to play a crucial role in improving the performance of the school and students. Furthermore, the principal has the ability to supervise the teachers and managing time so as to facilitate quality instructional practice. School performance and student outcomes will not match the parent and government investment. Additionally, the principal’s poor execution of instructional leadership practices will result in a negative performance of the school and student
Other domains covered by Ghamrawi et al. were based on “The Eleven Principles of Effective Character Education.” For them to achieve their research objectives, Ghamrawi et al. used SPSS to analyze research data. From the findings, the school principals were found to be lacking in terms of knowledge about the character goals detailed in the Lebanese curriculum. They did not integrate the character education with the school’s goals and mission which meant that their implementation process was unsuccessful. However, the research established that the school principals’perception character education did not match the eleven principles of character education. Therefore, Ghamrawi et al. recommended the involvement of the government and other education stakeholders in the national curriculum reform to integrate character education with the principals as the agents of change.
Project Description
Although teachers are in charge of delivering character education, it is incumbent upon institutional leaders to formulate the plan and support its implementation XXX. As they do this, they need to recognize that character-based education needs to offer pupils meaningful opportunities that develop their experiences, changes their perspectives, while also offering them new insight into life. Besides, the programs need to facilitate parent-teacher dialogue to enhance the performance of students. Guided by this knowledge, the current project seeks to explore the role of character education on all the areas that it influences. Notably, the project will focus on the impact of developing pupils’ character on their schools’ values, purpose, and culture. Importantly, the current project explores how instructors and learnersinteract in the context of shared values due to character-based education. Character education, a core component of institutional ethosdetermines all forms of institutional interactions and subsequent academic performance.As XXX posits, the transformation of institutional culture depends on the shared values and principles. However, this is achieved progressively through institutional leadership. This informs why the current project focuses on the effectiveness of school leadership in the implementation of character education in the long-term. In particular, the project explores the strategies that institutional leaders can adopt in their application of the plan. Undoubtedly, the implementation is bound to result in institutional reputational enhancement, increased enrollment, and enhancement of the learning environment. Character education is also associated with improved behavioral conduct and better academic performance. Therefore, since this project explores the relationship between the two variables, it will facilitate a greater understanding of the impact of character education, as well as how it can be implemented or supported. As XXX opines, this would necessitate a common language to facilitate communication between the stakeholders. Moreover, it would require visionary leaders whose core responsibility is to maintain the momentum for sustaining character education which in return helps shape young learners’ character.
Project Evaluation Plan
A project evaluation plan is crucial for stakeholders in the education sector, and community members since the implementation of character education aim to impact students for interaction at the social level. As XXX states, educational institutions need to consider all possible stressors of a learner’s school life for subsequent facilitation of coping. The current project seeks to evaluate how character education is implemented in institutions, teachers’ and students’ perceptions, and the impact of institutional leadership. Towards this end, the project will be founded on scientifically based research to add to the existing knowledge base to help policymakers and institutional leaders improve the effectiveness of education. Particularly, the project aims to provide data that will inform whether any interventions are necessary to accomplish the desired objectives. The project evaluation is also expected to facilitate staff nurturing while also integrating student, parent, and community efforts in the learning process. Besides, the project will facilitate the communication of the character education’s purpose and its benefits to parents and the community. Where character education implementation is funded, the funders will rely on the outcomes of the evaluation to determine if further funding is necessary. The project is also expected to facilitate the creation of a knowledge base that informs about what works or does not work in character education.
Project Implications
Research on the impact of institutional leadership on the implementation of character education curriculum is undoubtedly expected to have a significant impact on learners. For instance, students’ social and emotional aspects are bound to improve. Character education, as XXX implies, helps them make positive choices that improve societal interactions. Besides, character education makes students well-rounded,which empowers them to make sound decisions. Such students also engage productively with others since they have better self-awareness skills. Skilled facilitators empower their students with strategies that allow the development of emotional intelligence.However, XXX recommends that character education programs should be implemented using evidence-based strategies. According to him, students attending a single-sex school should also be enrolled in an educational program to develop their moral conduct. Educational policymakers should then make evaluations of the implementation process periodically to ensure that it is rolled out with fidelity. In particular, they should require students and instructors to complete surveys or participate in focus group discussions for data corroboration. Besides accelerating social change, character education programs also help increase the competency of learners empowering them to make sound decisions and deal with life dilemmas.
Goss and Holt define a discipline referral as an occurrence that demands that the principal summon a student for a punitive sanction. Moral communities on the other hand imply institutions that have effective and justice based cultures where developmental discipline and academic performance are emphasized. As XXX posits, all these are interrelated and form the basis of civic and moral education. While many programs have nbeen proposed in the past to address runaway indiscipline in learning institutions, none is comparable to character education. Quoting theorists such as Damon and Bandura, XXX postulates that it is paramount to change an individual’s thoughts to change their behavior. Character based education programs across the world aim at initiating dramatic transformations that reinforce prosocial behaviors making students cooperate more, respect one another, and be compassionate about each others’ situations. The implementation of character education programs helps inculcate discipline by resolving conflicts and imparting students with sound values that make them understand why physical violence is never the solution. As XXX says, teaching students to solve theoretical problems on paper without empowering them to solve problems with their peers is insufficient in today’s unpredictable world. Therefore, policymakers and school principals should aim at institutionalizing character education in the national curricula.
Character education is expected to help increase the levels of school attendance is integrated with the mainstream curriculum. According to XXX, character education was implemented in one intermediate school in Southwest USA. The target population was one of the most impoverished communities. However, despite being rolled out for an entire five-year period, the character education initiative resulted in a decline in the rates of teacher and student absenteeism. However, the rates progressively decreased by up to 50% as the impact of the learning program started being felt. Thus, it is justifiable to suppose that the implementation of character education promoteslearning motivation among learners. Several programs claim an increase in academic performance when character education is part of the curriculum. In the US, several programs are geared towards the support of character education. They include the Child Development Project, Seattle Social Development, and the Peaceful Schools Program. All of these programs, as XXX observe, point to a positive correlation between character education and academic improvement. Therefore, it is justifiable to say that character education enhances academic performance by reducing the number of disciplinary referrals.
Character education has been a debated term, as some refer it to as character instruction, which is embedded in the curriculum programs.Its implementation ought to be holistic approach to include day to day events. Besides, the support of parents and the community is crucial to its successful implementation. If integrated as part of the curriculum, character learning can help make students aware of the importance of learned character attributes. Character based learning is also likely to provide policy makers with sufficient information to use when formulating or implementing educational policies. In particular, given the positive correlation of the programs with indicipline reduction, and improved academic performance, the information would be critical.
Findings from this project study can be used to help school principals in addressing the issue of disruptive behavior through character education. School administrators and teachers benefit from the findings of this project study by successfully implementing character education. Students benefit from the findings by promoting positive behavior and by focusing on academic excellence. Parents and community members benefit from the findings by understanding their societal roles, such as participating in good character development and possibly recognize ways of instilling their children with good character traits. The findings benefit policymakers and professionals in the education field to support the quest of improving the education by designing and implementing educational strategies and well as conducting specialized training on character education.Future researchers may use the findings from this project study to help school administrators to offer insights and guidance in supporting the implementation of character education. This could be effective in addressing possible challenges that deter elementary school administrators from applying instructional leadership practices in terms of character education. In addition to supporting the school principals’ professional development, the direction for future research could involve the assessment of elementary school principals’ understanding and subsequent application of instructional leadership practices needed for implementing character education.