Moral Discipline to Promote Character Education

By David B. Wangaard, Ed.D.

Educators generally agree that appropriately implemented discipline policies are vital to establish a positive school climate. Yet while agreement about the importance of maintaining a positive disciplinary process is widely recognized, discipline policies are often overlooked or poorly implemented during the hectic pace of school life. Updating a school-wide disciplinary process to match the goals of moral discipline is a powerful strategy for character education.

Implementing moral-discipline policies requires a meaningful commitment of time and effort. A committee representing school-wide interests can assist in the process. While the administrative effort that is required is substantial, the results can be quite profound. The following narrative is a brief outline that suggests how to write behavior expectation statements, procedures, and rules to support policies consistent with moral discipline.

Clear statements describing behavior expectations such as; All members of Webster School will demonstrate respect; should be written and published widely throughout the school. This broad expectation statement should explicitly include a reference to the school's character vocabulary and elevate student and faculty vision to a high expectation of positive character.

Expectation statements can be written for school wide application or for more specialized application such as computer labs, art rooms, or school buses. Some schools create expectation statements in the form of acronyms; All members of Webster School will work to demonstrate CARE (Cooperation, Appreciation, Respect, & Ethics). The acronym helps provide links to meaningful character goals for students and adults throughout the school.

After completing a school-wide expectation statement, the next step in revising a school disciplinary process is to write up procedures for specific school settings (lunchroom, hallways). Procedures should provide a clear, simple, and detailed pathway for students and adults to follow in order to help everyone reach school expectations. Students need to be taught these procedures thoroughly at the start of the year. Instruction should include age-appropriate practice of new procedures. If procedures are not followed, it means students need more practice, reminders, or in the case of repeated willful violations, a consequence. However, for the specific process of moral discipline, procedures are not defined as rules, there should not be the weight of consequences assigned to student who make mistakes in procedures. Procedures are guides and should help us reach our expectations by remaining well within the rules. This is an important distinction in developing a moral discipline process. Students should understand this distinction and play an active role in supporting procedures to help reach our expectations. Educators sometimes confuse their procedures with rules, and then fail to consistently teach and practice their procedures or enforce rules.

Rule writing should follow the development of procedures. Rules should be limited in number and clearly published. Rules should define the outer boundaries that fail to meet our expectations. Rules are typically related to student emotional and physical safety as well as good stewardship of the school. After rules are written, the staff must consistently enforce them with consequences. Consequences should attempt to be restorative and fair. Most educators recognize the moral discipline process breaks down when consequences are not consistently or fairly enforced.

The start of any school year is a great time to revisit the moral discipline process at school. Revising the disciplinary process school wide will take a dedicated committee several weeks of interactive dialogue. Properly administered, the revision and maintenance of a moral discipline process can unite adults and students in the creation of a positive school climate. For a worksheet to assist in the process described here, you are invited to visit SEE's website at www.ethicsed.org and go to Consulting, Comprehensive Approach, and then Moral Discipline. The following texts are also recommended to keep ethics in action through the development of moral discipline plans.

1. Charney, R.S. (1995). Teaching children to care. Greenfield, MA: Northeast Foundation for Children.
2. Lickona, T. (1991). Educating for character. New York: Bantam.
3. Novak, D.E. & Strohmer, J.C. (1998). You don't have to dread cafeteria duty. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
4. Vincent, P.F. (1998). Rules & procedures for character education. Chapel Hill: NC: Character Development Group.
5. Wynne E. A. and Ryan, K. (1993). Reclaiming our schools: A handbook on teaching character, academics, and discipline. New York: Merrill.