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Character Education Academic research
Introduction
When discussing someone's character and personality, two major terms are important to mention:
the person's values and his moral development. Generally speaking, one's value system (or values) is "a set of consistent values or measures", as a principal value is "a value upon which other values and measures of integrity are based" ("Values", 2008).
Values vary between different people and cultures, as some are rooted in a specific culture, religion, ethnicity or any other differentiating factor. Be that as it may, some values have become pivotal and essential ones for the continued development and order in our modern society.
Among those are justice, integrity, equality (to some extent- since today inequality still rules in virtually every country on the planet) and so on and so forth. In order to maintain the structure of society and its proper functioning, rules are legislated to keep people from committing violations against these values and to protect people from harm's way ("Ethics vs. Morals", 2006).
Alongside the concept of values, in a parallel yet supplementary way, we have the stages of moral development a person undergoes in his lifetime. Originally, the concept of morality is derived out of a Latin word meaning manner, character, and proper behavior. It basically means the proper conduct of an individual in terms of right and wrong. But it also means the preferred code of conduct among others, that which most would choose had they been given a choice. Finally, it speaks of ethics.
These two terms have a significant effect on the environment in the classroom, as teachers are to educate children to tell right from wrong and encourage them to go in the right way, against their feelings at some point, because they have yet to reach a high enough cognitive a moral level
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