CAN WE “PRESCRIBE” CHARACTER?

Everybody has a story about what their parents/guardians wouldn’t tolerate. We also probably all have a list of the characteristics our elders emphasized right? Does your list look like mine?

• Work Hard
• Tell the Truth
• Share
• Keep your hands to yourself
• Don’t cry unless you want something to cry about (one of my personal favorites)
• Don’t start fights
• Do what you don’t want to do first…then you can play

These are the seemingly timeless ideals which, among others, have transcended generations. We’ve had ’em preached to us and done some of our own sermonizing to be sure. We believe in certain virtues don’t we? And we’re deathly afraid of what could happen if those under our influence don’t adopt them. But (and it’s a big BUT) what if the virtue is preached and not unpacked? What if the adoption of certain character traits are momentary and not permanent? What if we learned better yet, were told not to lie but returned to the practice in college because it was convenient? I struggled with cheating in junior high and high school even though I knew it was wrong. The problem was…it wasn’t yet poisonous to me in my estimation. There was no ontological connection to the perils of dishonesty across the board.

Ahh but the freshman year at Chapman University introduced me to seminar learning in a class called, what else, Freshman Seminar: War, Peace and Justice. From Mein Kampf to the American Civil Rights Movement to other controversies typically discussed in such classes, I learned to think. And truthfully, I was challenged to think in A.P. English in high school. Some of my fondest church and scholastic experiences involve thinking as it were and whatever commitment I have to virtue or the struggle toward it is due largely to my life’s seminar.

There is a raging debate when it comes to character education and how it’s done. The prevailing, more traditional approaches esteem an idea that looks kind of like programming.Tell children what to do and reprimand the unacceptable behavior. Ask questions like, “What should you have said instead of making fun of David’s mother’s breath?”

The other approach is reflective, allowing for questions and interaction with perspectives that come from the minds of young people. Is one right, both, neither? Is a combination of both preferable? I grew up learning the hard way about why honesty works best. For starters, it’s better for the backside. But to be fair, honesty never had any intrinsic power until I hurt people with lies. Then I learned WHY lying fails community. Prescribing hard work, integrity, resolve, etc… means little if the person in need of the virtue has not yet found support for its validity.

High school students I’ve taught who were skipping school to party, be promiscuous, do drugs and the like know what they’ve been told about such activities. I always found their motives more interesting. So I asked about MOTIVES for say…ditching. Can character be formed from simply asking questions? Why not? If truth is what we claim it is, humans of all ages are bound for a rendezvous. With the need for sound character ethic being revealed through economic downturn, riotous behavior during natural disasters and power-hungry opportunism in the third world it may be time to step away from our podiums if our methods of character development are purely prescriptive. Maybe it’s time to ask ourselves and our proteges those real character-oriented questions that, it turns out, have more gravity than behavior observations. It’s a risky model but a lesson learned is likely a lesson permanent.