Character Goes Back To School

At Talent House Private School, which serves elementary and middle school students in the Washington suburb of Fairfax, Va., character education starts early. How early? In the school's nursery, where parents can park future students as young as six weeks old before heading to work in their Land Rovers and Cherokees, the walls are festooned with posters boosting the values of good character. This month's value is Helpfulness. So as the caregivers diaper and burp their gurgling little charges, the infants stare up at a sign that reads THE SEEDS OF HELPFULNESS BLOOM EARLY.

Though unaffiliated with any religious denomination, Talent House calls itself a Christian school, where the day opens with the Lord's Prayer, and grace is spoken before each meal--character-building tools unavailable, of course, to the nation's public schools. But we live now in the bloody backwash of Littleton, Jonesboro and several other schoolhouse horror stories, not to mention the more quotidian indicators of failing character, from widespread cheating to gang activity. Across the country, schools both public and private are turning to programs of character education in hopes of inoculating kids with the values of civility and integrity, against the depredations of a popular culture that often seems to reward neither. As Talent House goes, so goes the nation.

In a field as susceptible to fads as public education (Remember values clarification? Self-esteem development?), character ed is now the hottest thing going. If it hasn't hit your local school district yet, just wait. Some form of it is being taught in all 50 states, according to Esther Schaeffer of the Character Education Partnership, an advocacy group in Washington. Georgia and Alabama have made such programs mandatory, and more states are now debating legislation that would follow their lead. Last year the federal Department of Education handed out $5.2 million to schools for character ed; the figure is expected to double next year.

Politicians too--surprise!--have discovered the elixir of schoolroom values. Last week Senator Pete Domenici, New Mexico Republican, proposed legislation to provide an additional $125 million over five years for character-education programs. At his conference last week on school violence, President Clinton--without apparent irony--endorsed character education. And Dan Quayle has expressed his own ideas on how to proceed: "I suggest [students] start with the Ten Commandments." (It sure beats spelling bees.)

But not so fast: any explicit instruction in the Ten Commandments would alarm guardians of the church-state wall. And in any case, they would have to be translated into modern educationese: Thou shalt model caring behaviors in interactive relationships with thy peer group. In the public schools, where any kind of commandment might be deemed unduly judgmental, character ed revolves around pillars or building blocks of character--universally accepted values bleached of any sectarian contamination. And they are transmitted by the familiar methods beloved of today's pedagogues: posters and banners, role playing and sharing, multi-culti storytelling and words of the week--all the cheerful paraphernalia that makes the modern American classroom seem like a Maoist re-education camp run by Barney the dinosaur.