“A little
knowledge is a dangerous thing.” Too much knowledge without character is also a dangerous
thing. In both cases, you get people who know their ABCs, but who are not
educated.
People with
little knowledge are just literate. People with too much knowledge and no
character are just robot-like citizens.
Both
types are poorly-educated in that they lack quality education. And quality-lacking education holds back and does not make for just, productive, and democratic societies. It produces half-judges, half-teachers, half-doctors,
fake-priests, fake-muftis, fake-citizens… in brief a threat to society.
In Theodore
Roosevelt’s words, “To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society”. He means that focusing only on the education of
students in core curriculums such as languages, mathematics, social studies etc.
without also educating them in moral value, simply indoctrinates individuals
who will jeopardize and undermine societies.
In Stephen
Covey’s opinion, intellectual development without character development is like
“putting a high-powered sports car in the hands of a teenager who is high on drugs.” One need only look to the ever-present stories of crime and violence that fill out televisions and newspapers to find the truth of his words; lack of character education is ubiquitous, and increasingly apparent. Present-day education gives us knowledge but not respect for ethics, character and moral values.
Remember the
various terrorist attacks that shook the world! Remember the 17-year old student from Ouarzazate’s (Morocco) Sidi Daoud high school who violently beat one of his teachers! Remember the world's most notorious scandals! These and other flagrant acts are
the result of a lack of character and quality education.
Mahatma
Gandhi mentioned seven things that will destroy us. “Knowledge without character” ranks among the first three. He’s right; what good is our knowledge of Physics if
all we do is build bombs and arms of mass destruction? What good is our knowledge of Philosophy if all we do
is remain indifferent to gross human rights?”
As Martin
Luther King put it, we live in a world of “guided missiles and misguided men.” This means that even “scientific findings” could be bent to suit the political
ideologies of the amoral politicians and business-people who have not yet completed their
education.
But what is
character education?
Dr. Thomas
Lickona defines character education as “the deliberate effort to help people understand, care about, and act upon core ethical values.” Character
education, then, aims to instill in students important fundamental, ethical and performance
values such as honesty, fairness, responsibility, caring, diligence, fortitude, and respect for self and others. Its objective, also, is to form and train young people in wisdom and virtue.
Bottom line;
character grounds education and keeps us from becoming bad, corrupt, wicked, and
cruel. So, isn’t it time we restore character education to its rightful place at
the center of the curriculum?
