Those which are allowed to become moral vacuums are making a statement to their students about the value of behaving well. Any school which is lax about cheating, whose teachers are unfair, which condones racism or sexism, which is not a caring institution, will have an effect on its children which parents will have to struggle to overcome. How much better it will be if schools support the efforts of parents, and parents support the work of schools, and together they work to mold our children into decent, kind, honorable adults. The classroom is a professional environment for learning, and character must be explicitly taught therein. Teachers can use the classroom both as a forum for direct instruction and as an opportunity to lead by example.
Administrators can aid in the development of good character by creating a moral community at school.
Such a community of good educators and good students is fundamental to successful schools in general because it will create an environment where every subject can be taught more efficiently and with better results. For more information on Fundamentals of Character Education, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to the Ethics Resource Center at 1747 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Suite 400, Washington, DC 20006. Aristotle, Ethics, trans.