Today, due to the serious moral dilemmas arising in modern society, youth education is facing a critical moment. In today’s knowledge-based society, with an ever increasing amount of access to information via the internet, young students are receivi...
Today, due to the serious moral dilemmas arising in modern society, youth education is facing a critical moment. In today’s knowledge-based society, with an ever increasing amount of access to information via the internet, young students are receiving information that is unfiltered by parents, teachers and the general community. In addition, other forms of media like television, video, cartoons, and magazines are primarily commercial oriented and thus favor advertising revenue over adequate, qualityeducational content.
Compounding the negative effects and pervasive nature of frivolous information is a lack of guidance, in the way of character development, from parents. Parents’busy work schedules and social activities leave little room for valuable discussion with their children, and often times parents are solely concerned with good grades, thereby neglecting the educational function of the home. Rampant materialism in society has led the youth to juvenile delinquency or deviation. The decay of moral values and ethics has resulted in chaos within families, schools, and society. Reflecting on these trends, the key issue in our education sector is character education. Character education involves developing well-rounded, well-behaved students who in turn become successful, well-adjusted individuals in the future and contribute positively to society as adults.
Recently there has been a lot of criticism regarding the insufficient character education of students in schools and a lack of attention toward youth leadership education, so the necessity for systematic research on character education has become more important than ever before. Continuous demands for the strengthening of character education point to people’s dissatisfaction with the current education system. However, even though many people speak of the need for character education, the definition of character education is still vague in the minds of many in terms of how we should proceed in implementing it in our schools. A great deal of study on the subject has yet to be conducted.
It was with the need for a detailed investigation into character education in mind, that this research was conducted. The following is a brief overview of the issues explored in the paper:
Chapter I: ‘Introduction’, suggested the necessity and purpose of research through problem suggestion.
Chapter II: ‘Contemplation on The Essence of Character Education’, by first clearly defining the concept of character and character education, it waspossible to minimize confusion about the meaning of character education in school settings, thus enabling a constructive examination of the necessity and purpose of character education.
Chapter III: ‘The Reality and Direction of Character Education’, the developmental process of Korea’s character education, the current lack of character education in the Korean school system, and the character education of several developed countries’school systems, were all analyzed in an effort to begin shaping the most desirable direction for character education in Korean schools - a direction t hat would both fit the country’s unique value system and is in line with the fundamental principles of character education.
Chapter IV: ‘Character Education, Morality, and Education’, in regards to the relationship between morality and character education, it was concluded that character education should be systemically processed utilizing an array of content and methods concerning the moral curriculum. Accordingly, current problems, related to character education within the overall education system, were examined by analyzing current moral educational content.
Chapter V: ‘Activation Methods of Character Education in the Moral Curriculum’, a more systemic teaching method was pursued by presenting a practical class model for character education in the moral curriculum.
Chapter VI: ‘Conclusion’, a summary ofthe discussion on character education based on character education activation methods of the moral curriculum discussed in Chapter V.
In order to re-establish the high status of morals and overcome the crisis of morality in our society, we need to have serious, detailed discussions on character education. Character development should be a priority and should be dealt with through lessons on morality, and its practical application.
Character education, as discussed in this paper, is essential to the actualization of a moral shift in Korea’s education system. When students can internalize morality regulations and principles through moral education, and incorporate those ideas into their daily habits, actions and decision making processes, upstanding individuals are created. As the number of upstanding individuals increases, clues as to how to solve modern day society’s many moral crises will emerge along with an ethical community in which everyone leads high quality, morally centered lives.