Volume 2, Issue 9

Who among us has not, at one time or another, asked ourselves these questions? For many students, these questions persist throughout their college years as they seek to explore, identify, and clarify what they want to do with the remainder of their adult lives. Students' responses to these questions vary widely: some let their parents answer them, others respond more to the promise of financial and social rewards than to the questions themselves, and still others chose to ignore the questions altogether. Some college students, however, take these questions seriously, trying, in the words of St. Ignatius Loyola, to remember that "only one thing is important - to seek and find what God calls me to at this point in life." These students - however rare or common - are interested in understanding and following their calling or vocation, what Frederick Buechner (1973) has defined as "the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."

Present society places many demands upon classroom teachers. They are expected to deliver all areas of curriculum with mastery and ease. They are forever being called upon to incorporate one more essential piece needed for full student development. Character Education has become one of those new essential pieces. All teachers, no matter what their grade level, discipline, or years of experience, need information and guidance on how to demonstrate and implement positive character traits in the classroom. Experts agree that the best way to train teachers in character education is to reach them before they ever get into the classroom. Therefore, departments of education need to begin incorporating Character Education into their teacher education curriculums.

When I took office at Harvard in 1970, the courses in applied ethics around the country had all but disappeared. Only Catholic universities maintained the traditions of concern for the kinds of ethical problems we encounter in everyday life. The philosophy departments of institutions like my own had long since retreated into the higher levels of abstraction that have little connection to the real world. And that, of course, left a terrible gap in our education. It was only when issues like affirmative action, abortion, Watergate and other moral issues too important to ignore burst upon the scene that interest in ethics revived. And that, on many counts, is owed more to outside pressure from alumni and professional groups than to spontaneous interest from the faculty.