THE EXPERTISE OF MORAL CHARACTER

Whitehouse Conference

On

Character and Community

June 19, 2002

Presented By

Darcia Narvaez, Ph.D.

University of Notre Dame

For the past several years my colleagues and I, in partnership with the
Minnesota Department of Children, Families and Learning, have been
developing a model for character education in the middle grades that we
call "Community Voices and Character Education." [^1] Our work has been
guided by four considerations. First, we adopt a skills-based
understanding of moral character. This is not a new idea. Plato, for
example, in *The Republic*, repeatedly draws an analogy between the
training and practices of the just person and the training and practices
of skilled artisans and professionals. A just person is one who has
particular, highly-cultivated skills that have been developed through
training and practice.[^2]

Second, like Plato, we believe that character development is a matter of
nurturing skills towards high levels of expertise. Our work is guided by
recent advances in cognitive science regarding the nature of expertise
and its development.

Third, the pedagogy driving our model holds several educational
advantages. Here I mention just three. (1) Our model assumes an active
cognitive approach to learning, which is central to best practice
instruction. (2) Our model opens character education to greater
accountability in that skills are teachable and their progress can be
measured. (3) Our model insists that character development be embedded
within standards-driven academic curriculum, for this is the only way
character education can be sustained.

Finally, we contend that a curricular approach to character education
must be in collaboration with "community voices." The implementation
must reflect the commitments of the local community and the needs of its
citizenry. The issue of "whose values will be taught?" is best
approached by embedding educational goals within the value expressions
of particular communities.

All four of these orienting assumptions have guided our work in
Minnesota. I would like to flesh out some of these ideas by briefly
addressing five questions. (1) How do children learn? (2) How are
experts different from novices and how did they get that way? (3) What
do people of good character know? (4) How do we nurture good character
in schools? (5) How can a program be sustained?

**1. How Do Children Learn**?

One approach to instruction essentially assumes that the child is
passive in her own learning. The child's job is to attend, receive,
store, and recall. In this approach, the teacher "pitches" information
and the student must "catch" it. Learning is a matter of catching what
the teacher pitches. This conception of learning is inaccurate. Children
learn from their interactions with people and objects (Reed & Johnson,
1998; Piaget, 1970); they formulate a set of individualized
representations of the world (Piaget, 1952); they construct networks of
conceptual associations or schemas (Rumelhart, 1980; Taylor & Crocker,
1981). With experience, schemas increase in complexity (Schank &
Abelson, 1977) and if a person becomes very good at performing and
solving problems in a particular area, we call that person an expert.

**2. How Are Experts Different From Novices**?

Experts are different from novices in three significant ways. First,
there are differences in the size, complexity, and organization of
knowledge schemas (Chi, Glaser & Farr, 1988; Sternberg, 1998). Those
with more complex schemas in moral judgment are able to say more about a
moral dilemma and recall more from a moral story (Narvaez, 1997;
Narvaez, 1998).

Second, experts see the world differently (Neisser, 1967). Their deep
and vast pattern matching capabilities allow experts to notice things
that novices miss. For example, among auditors, those with more complex
moral judgment schemas are more likely to find questionable entries in
financial statements and they are more likely to report them (Poneman &
Gabhart, 1994).

Experts also possess well-developed sets of procedural skills. Unlike
novices, experts know *what* knowledge to access, *which* procedures to
apply, *how* to apply them, and *when* it is appropriate (Abernathy &
Hamm, 1995). More generally, experts approach problems conceptually.
They look for the underlying grammar or structure in a problem, while
novices get bogged down or distracted by surface appearances (Novick,
1988). For example, expert classroom teachers can recognize the
pre-conditions for misbehavior and have a set of tools they can employ
to circumvent it. In contrast, the novice teacher often misses the cues
until the classroom is well out of hand (Berliner, 1992).

Expertise is a notion that has gained prominence among educational
researchers. Indeed, some contend that intellectual abilities are best
viewed as forms of expertise (Sternberg, 1998; 1999). Children move
along a continuum from novice-to-expert in each content domain that they
study. We adopt this perspective for moral character.

How do experts become experts? To develop expertise, one must master the
defining features and underlying structures of the domain and focus on
them during extensive practice. These conceptual tools and general
principles enable them to detect meaningful patterns and solve problems
(Abernathy & Hamm, 1995). Further, their practice is focused, extensive
and coached (Ericsson & Charness, 1994; Ericsson, Krampe, &
Tesch-Roemer, 1993).

**3. What Do People of Good Character Know?**

In Minnesota, we spent several years in consultation and collaboration
with educators to construct a framework for character development that
draws on reviews of research (Bebeau, Rest, & Narvaez, 1999; Rest, 1983;
Narvaez & Rest, 1995) and builds on the foundations I have just outlined
(Narvaez, Mitchell, Endicott & Bock, 1999). Persons of good character
have better developed skills in four areas: ethical sensitivity, ethical
judgment, ethical motivation, and ethical action. Each of these four
processes has seven skills, along with suggestions for subskills
(Narvaez, Endicott & Bock, in press). The skills and subskills are the
schemas that students need to build for good character and for good
citizenship. For example, experts in the skills of Ethical Sensitivity
are better at quickly and accurately 'reading' a moral situation and
determining what role they might play. Experts in the skills of Ethical
Judgment have many tools for solving complex moral problems. Experts in
the skills of Ethical Motivation cultivate an ethical identity that
leads them to prioritize ethical goals. Experts in the skills of Ethical
Action know how to keep their "eye on the prize," enabling them to stay
on task and take the necessary steps to get the ethical job done. Our
model is appropriate for understanding character development because it
provides a wholistic, concrete view of the moral person. Yet identifying
the skills, or the curriculum, is not enough for a successful character
development program.

**4. How Do We Nurture Good Character in Schools?**

[What not to do]{.underline}. Like many experts, some teachers forget
what it is like to be a novice (Hinds, 1999; Whitehead, 1929). Some
educators believe that presenting a list of virtues is nearly as clear
to the students as it is to them. Although the label, 'honesty,' is
convenient for the adult in chunking all sorts of experiences in memory,
a child has few experiences to draw on. Labeling a complex set of
behaviors with a single word or story does not help the novice or the
child. A story's moral theme that seems so clear to an adult is not the
theme many children take away (Narvaez, 2002; Narvaez, Bentley, Gleason,
& Samuels, 1998; Narvaez, Gleason, Mitchell, & Bentley, 1999). For
example in one study, third graders on average extracted the intended
theme only 10% of the time (Narvaez, Gleason et al, 1999). Research
shows that knowledge application is necessary to build expertise.

[What educators should do]{.underline}. Here are three recommendations.

*1. Educators must take on the responsibility of
[intentional]{.underline} character skill instruction* instead of a
hit-or-miss approach.

*2. Educators must provide authentic learning experiences based on
levels of apprenticeship.* Four levels of learning or apprenticeship are
suggested (Narvaez et al, in press): (1) Pattern detection by immersion
in relevant examples, (2) Attention to critical detail, (3) Practice
procedures, (4) Integrate knowledge and procedures. Educators must
present the defining features of each skill---of showing respect, of
showing care, of persevering. Teachers need to make sure students have
many opportunities to build their own understandings or schemas from
practice while teachers guide them through the terrain of the domain. As
apprentices of good character, students need to be immersed in authentic
learning environments, taking on increasing responsibility, refining
their sensibilities and strategies as they gain more experience
(Marshall, 2000; Rogoff, Baker-Sennett, Lacasa, & Goldsmith, 1995). In
schools that create "just communities"---where virtually all school
decisions are made by the student-faculty collective, the defining
features of democratic decision making are laid out and practiced.
Students develop skills for participatory democracy, commitment to
collective norms and personal responsibility (Power, Kohlberg, &
Higgins, 1989).

*3. Educators must arrange learning experiences in a variety of
collaborative community contexts.* Schools can provide opportunities for
skill development by encouraging broad engagement with the community so
that students can learn, apply, and hone their ethical competencies in
real-life settings. The elders, leaders, and all citizens in the
community are "funds of knowledge" and can be partners in coaching the
students in their skill development. For in reality, students are
apprentices to the community.

**5. How Can a Program Be Sustained?**

I present the ethical expertise model to teams of educators and ask that
they include in their implementation design the following
characteristics critical to sustainability.

*1. Integrate ethical skill development into standards-driven
instruction.*

*2. Teach character across the curriculum in every subject and
activity.*

*3. Involve the whole community in adapting the model to local
structures.* The full spectrum of the community must be involved in the
adoption and adaptation of a program. In fact, each implementation of
the model is unique because it is locally envisioned and locally
controlled.

What about student outcomes? Our post-test data are just now being
organized. But in a pilot study comparing participating classrooms with
non-participating classrooms, we found significant increases only in the
participating classrooms for prosocial responsibility, ethical identity
and prosocial risk-taking (Narvaez et al. 2000).

**Summary and Conclusion**

Moral character is best thought of as a set of teachable,
ethically-relevant skills. Ethical skill instruction should be embedded
in standards-driven pedagogy. Ethical skills should be taught across the
curriculum. With such an education, students will develop schemas of
goodness and of justice. They will learn routines of helping and of
reasoning. They will learn skills of leadership and of commitment. With
these skills they can take responsibility for ethical action in their
neighborhoods and communities. They will be energized by memories of
personal ethical action. With these skills, students are empowered to be
active citizens who will make the fate of the nation their own.

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[^1]: ? The project director is Connie Anderson at the Minnesota
    Department of Children, Families and Learning. The University of
    Minnesota was subcontractor for design and evaluation. My role is
    project designer. My colleagues in this project are Leilani
    Endicott, Tonia Bock, and Jim Lies. The project is funded by grant
    #R215V980001 from the Office of Educational Research and
    Improvement.

[^2]: "Then this turning around of the mind itself might be made a
    subject of techne...what are commonly called excellences of the
    mind....are not in fact innate, but are implanted by subsequent
    training and practice;" (*Republic*, book six, part seven, 518:
    d-e).