Why is Teaching Children Right from Wrong Not Enough?
There is a bias we all suffer from and there is an urgent, even critical, need to help young people recognize it for what it is. It forms the basis for all of our hopes and dreams and ultimately determines who we are as individuals. It can debase and destroy us or it can ennoble and build us up. It can serve us or it can control us. Indeed, it shapes our very character and ultimately decides our choices. It is the I-want bias.
Character is all about making choices. One’s character is more completelly defined by one’s choices than any other factor. Opinion makers; advertisers, politicans, religious leaders and educators on the one hand vs. drug dealers, pornographers, etc. on the other all focus their efforts on influencing others to make particular choices. It’s at the point of choice that the decision is made as to what is really important and the course that one will follow.
The unfortunate reality of our time is that, before their character is yet fully formed, large numbers of our young, privileged as perhaps no generation before with freedom of thought and action, are being confronted with ideas and choices, the consequences of which they can barely fathom much less comprehend.
Young people today are faced with a bewildering array of choices-not just in the number of options available to them, but also in the potential outcomes of these choices, for both good and ill. Character education is all about teaching young people to make responsible choices-choices that are constructive and positive in nature.
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