Widening the Lens to Teach Character Education Alongside Standards Curriculum

Abstract This article challenges policymakers, school leaders, and teachers to implement wide-scale and systematic teaching of character education in every classroom. In support of the idea that student character development should be a priority in all classes, I explain that youth need “decision-filters” to negotiate life's challenges. Further, the article illustrates how character education can be taught through various courses. Several state-level academic standards are analyzed to (1) identify cognitive instructional emphases and (2) determine relevant affective teachings for character instruction. As I explain, the teaching of character education can be integrated naturally with and taught alongside any state's standards-based curriculum. Rather than adding a new course to an already overloaded school curriculum, character education should be integrated with other subject areas and routinely taught through all classes and by all teachers.