Exploring character education : a case study of a religious private school in North Lebanon

Abstract

In line with the school’s religious duty and its mission statement, a group of educators at a private religious school in North Lebanon felt responsibility toward their community and decided to introduce a Value Teaching Initiative (VTI) to the curriculum. Its aim is to educate their students with, and to create a school culture imbued by values that they perceive as lacking in their society. This study investigates this initiative in light of established character education models. For the purpose, I conducted a case study through which I interviewed educators and students, and collected documents pertaining to civics and religious education as well as the VTI introduced by the school. Data analysis shows that educators at this school attribute importance to religious spirituality as a strong motivator for moral behavior. For this intention, they regard it as essential to connect values to the principles of religion and the heavenly reward to inculcate them more strongly in the youngsters. However, they regard the school’s role in this domain with humility because they see that other factors as the parents of the students, their community, and the media are stronger influencers. Students agree to the multiplicity of influencing factors and highlight the importance of their own character in their moral behavior. In short, even though some gaps were perceived in the implementation of the VTI, it seems that it is viewed positively and is worth revisiting. Since value education is one aspect of character education, the school may consider referring to established character education models to address gaps in the VTI. In particular, this study identifies gaps in the alignment of the different types of curricula and in the education of the student as a whole person. Moreover, it suggests that the school should seek to create opportunities for better involvement of the parents and the community in the process and to train teachers to manage the different aspects of character education.