Obstacles to Teacher Training in Character Education

Currently there is both a great demand for and a proliferation of character education initiatives at the K-12 levels. Unfortunately, much of this proliferation has been unsystematic and uncontrolled. Despite the obvious good will of character educators, there is little training available, particularly at the pre-service level. This paper will examine both the need for and obstacles to implementing effective pre-service training in character education. Six obstacles are addressed: Disagreement on what character is; disagreement on what constitutes character education; perceptions of limited space in pre-service curricula for character education training; limited scientific data about which character education elements are effective and for what outcomes; where the expertise and resources are; ambivalence about the appropriateness of educating for character. Suggestions are offered for overcoming each of these obstacles.