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Creating a Culture of Integrity in the Classroom

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Creating a Culture of Integrity in the Classroom

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Creating a Culture of Integrity in the Classroom

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Students develop academic honesty when you build their moral vocabulary, respond appropriately to cheating, use meaningful quotes, and inspire them to believe in themselves.

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Ethics in the Classroom | PBS LearningMedia

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Ethics in the Classroom | PBS LearningMedia

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Ethics in the Classroom | PBS LearningMedia

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The Ethics in the Classroom collection was created as part of WNET's Youth Collective. Youth Collective is a Generation Z media and education initiative that aims to amplify youth voice and provide a platform for young people to engage in the important work of building a more ethical world.

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8 Fun Integrity Activities for High School Students

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8 Fun Integrity Activities for High School Students

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Integrity is an essential and valuable skill that students must possess if they want to flourish in life going ahead. It is a combination of values such as honesty, trustworthiness, respectfulness, fairness, being responsible, and the ability to demonstrate courage. Be it higher education or the workplace, students must show integrity to lead a good personal and civic life. Students must be aware to understand and evaluate integrity in day-to-day life. It is essential to teach students the difference between right and wrong and how to always choose to do the right thing no matter how difficult the situation is.

Being morally right and standing and abiding by one's own principles is well appreciated but may be difficult to follow at times. At thehighschooler, we aim to teach kids without compromising on the 'fun' factor which is why, we bring to you a list of 8 activities that you can conduct in your classroom to educate your students about the need for integrity. Most of these activities revolve around the rules of high school classrooms such as being polite to one another, being respectful, and more.

Teach integrity with these cool activities!

Given the ethical scenarios, we shall thrive to help students build up their integrity. In our effort to help them through fun activities, we will ensure we start from the very basic - which is what integrity is.

Here is a list of 8 awesome activities that you can conduct within your classroom. These activities will not only cultivate integrity but will also ensure that the students enjoy and get to know their peers better.

1. The 'Reflect-o-paper' activity

In this activity, ask each student to bring out newspaper cuttings or clippings from magazines depicting some incidents involving people that showed integrity. You can ask the students to describe the incidents they have picked to the rest of the class and also give reasons as to why and how they think the incidents involve integrity.

Besides, you can divide the class into two groups wherein the students from one group must bring in newspaper cuttings or clippings of incidents that demonstrate integrity while the other group brings in information about incidents that depict a lack of integrity.

2. Journal-o-gram

In this activity, ask students to maintain a journal for a week/month. Ask them to note down and keep a record of day-to-day activities that they observe and categorize them into integrity-based and non-integrity based.

In this way, students will keenly observe their surroundings day-to-day and learn better about integrity through real-life scenarios. If you want to keep a tab on whether or not they are doing it daily, you can pick one or two students random and ask them to narrate any of the events they have seen so far.

3. Integrity bingo

Who doesn't love bingo? Since bingo counts as a popular game for everyone irrespective of their age, we could not miss it out here while trying to educate our young students. This is going to be quite a time-consuming activity, so you will need a good couple of hours to conduct this activity! Firstly, ask students to take a piece of paper and write down some incidents that they have witnessed in their life. In the end, ask them to highlight the integrity-based emotion associated with the incident.

Now, based on the emotions highlighted, make a classic bingo grid but instead of numbers, write down the emotions. Pass on the bingo grids to the students and toss the piece of paper consisting of the emotions into a jar. Now pick one chit at a time and call out the emotion. Students must cross out the emotion if it is present in their chit. You can follow the rules of Bingo for this game as well. The student that wins must narrate an incident related to the emotion he or she resonated the most with.

4. The 'Random Appreciation' activity

Not sure how many of you are aware but once upon a time, social media was fluttered with posts like 'Random Appreciation Post' where the Gen-Z posted pictures with cute appreciation for people they really wanted to take a moment to appreciate.

We might be a little late to the trend but better late than never, because following something similar, in this activity, we will give each student a minute or two (or a little more based on convenience) to appreciate someone from their class or school, whom they genuinely want to thank for their integrity. These students must describe the incident that led them to think this. You can impose some boundary conditions such as the students can only talk about one of their classmates, senior, or junior, etc.

5. The 'Skit-o-mania' activity

Role Plays or skits have often been regarded as one of the best ways to showcase a message to the general public. Implementing this into the formulation, you can divide the students into groups and ask them to pick up any story or incident - be it from movies, books, or their personal lives, which must depict integrity.

To make things a little more challenging, you can give all the groups this particular scenario.

What happens when someone who is trying to be honest and lead a life with integrity and dignity is pressured by a group that wants him or her to go against his own moral principles for a dangerous outcome that harms society?

This will leave the outcome very open-ended and it may happen that different groups may come up with different solutions for the same problem. All the students will get an idea on what could be the possible ways to deal with a scenario like this.

6. Demographic Democratic

All of us love being in power, isn't it? Sprinkling a little dosage of momentary reality into this, give students the scenario wherein they get elected into power and they decide the rules and reforms that govern the country that they have to run. This can be a group activity and will require students to brainstorm quite a lot. You can present the following scenario to them:

You are elected as the government/ruling party of country X. As you have come to power, you have to reform or introduce some policies that you think are of utmost importance for the citizens of X.

Give the groups some time to come up with policies. Once they have, ask them to take turns and narrate the policies. While one group is narrating the policy, the other groups are allowed to pose questions to check the integrity behind imposing such a policy.

7. The classic scavenger hunt but with a twist

Who doesn't enjoy a scavenger hunt? Finding and decoding hidden clues with time running out really gets the adrenaline hitting the roof. Keeping the fun alive but subjecting the students to some more challenges, here is a fun-filled scavenger hunt that also gives them a lesson or two about integrity.

Hide some items within the classroom/school premises and mark each item with an identification mark. Now, divide the students into groups and tell them to find the items and set boundary conditions to limit them such as 'You can only search within the cafeteria or within the library' but hide the objects outside these areas. Now also tell them that whatever they find must have an identification mark on it else they will be disqualified.

Tell them the group that finds the most number of objects wins and set a reward for them. Now, many will search and come up with nothing while some will go out of the said boundary and get you the hidden object. The students or group that brings in nothing is the winner because they obeyed the rules. There can be more than one group that is the winner, and you can split the reward. Once you have declared the winner(s) it is important to reason why they are the winners.

8. The 'write your heart out' activity

In other words, this activity is as simple as essay writing. Unleash the creative bee within students by asking students to write whatever they think comes to their mind when they think about integrity.

If you do not want to limit their creative ability, you can give them the freedom to come up with fictional stories with morals that relate to integrity. If you want to keep it specific, then give them a topic to write their essay. One of the topics that we can think of is: 'What happens when one does not live with integrity in society? What are the consequences he or she faces?'

Some more tips on academic integrity for high schoolers

Here is a list of some pointers that students can use as a checklist to kick in the ability to display integrity in day-to-day life.

1. Being honest in friendships.

2. Living up to promises.

3. Standing up for what is right no matter how difficult

4. Accepting your mistakes and apologizing for them

5. Staying out of the blame game

6. Avoiding gossipping.

7. Not bullying yet not getting bullied as well.

8. Being polite with everyone irrespective of their social status.

9. Not cheating in tests and exams.

10. Always speaking the truth

11. Not breaking anybody's trust

12. Keeping secrets.

Tips to encourage integrity in the classroom

Here are four tips that teachers can implement to cultivate integrity among high schoolers.

No other way than to be a practical example of what you are preaching. It is a well-known fact that children tend to pick up a lot of things by observing their surroundings. The same goes for integrity and ethics. Be honest, be polite, be encouraging, and be everything that you urge your students to be.

Display quotations within the classroom or write one positive quote each day. They are great writing prompts and icebreakers for conversations. Quotes will help bring in positivity and cultivate a positive classroom environment. They also have the potential to promote the positive and healthy emotional well-being of each student by suggesting to them to make the right decisions and be on the right path.

Organize a movie premier

What is better than giving the students a break by showing them movies? Organize movie day for the students and showcase movies that have great morals related to integrity and the values associated with it.

Turn library hours into 'integrity-specific learning' hours

Encourage students to read books and novels based on integrity during library hours. You can also ask them to write book reviews later.

Wrapping things up!

Keeping self-integrity in check is essential because it lets students be mindful of their behavior and keep their interpersonal skills in check. Considering the same, we curated a list of 8 unique activities to help you out! We hope with the aforementioned activities, you can successfully inculcate integrity in high schoolers.

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8 Fun Integrity Activities For High School Students - TheHighSchooler

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Integrity is an essential and valuable skill that students must possess if they want to flourish in life going ahead. It is a combination of values such as honesty, trustworthiness, respectfulness, fairness, being responsible, and the ability to demonstrate courage. Be it higher education or the workplace, students must show integrity to lead a good ...

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To help students avoid plagiarizing, high school teachers can foster an environment where honesty and respect are values held in common.

SeventyFour Images / Alamy

When I encounter academic dishonesty in my classroom, I experience a complex blend of emotions: disappointment, sadness, and a profound sense of collective responsibility. These situations prompt introspection, compelling me to question my effectiveness as an educator, despite reassurances from peers that I am not to blame.

In my role as a high school history teacher, I assume more than the responsibility of imparting knowledge. I remain committed to educating individuals who embody integrity in all areas of their lives. I seek to cultivate an environment where honesty and respect are as important as the knowledge itself, ensuring that the commitment to integrity embeds seamlessly into our educational journey.

Delving Into the Intricacies of Academic Dishonesty

We embark by exploring the complexities of academic dishonesty, moving past simple definitions to reveal its deeper nuances. We assess real-life instances of plagiarism, gaining a concrete perspective on the repercussions and intricacies tied to violations of integrity.

Last month, we delved into the recent case of former Harvard University President Claudine Gay, isolating the plagiarism allegations from other controversies. My students discussed how some scholars downgraded Gay's clear-cut plagiarism to "duplicative language," a minor offense that called for revisions, but nothing more by way of punishment.

In this instance, my students also called out a double standard. "Students would never get that same chance to revise plagiarized work without some kind of serious punishment," one person shared. Others nodded in agreement.

We also discussed popular historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, whose 1987 book The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys included entire passages lifted verbatim from historian Lynne McTaggart's 1983 biography Kathleen Kennedy: Her Life and Times.

I read aloud an excerpt from McTaggart's New York Times opinion article " Fame Can't Excuse a Plagiarist": "In some quarters, [plagiarism] has been excused as the literary equivalent of the droit du seigneur -the natural entitlement of the most talented or the most popular writers who can have their way with whatever material happens to seize their fancy."

Popular writers can't, and my students shouldn't either.

I might also introduce an article from The Guardian that explores Goodwin's reluctance to label her actions as plagiarism, opting instead for the term "borrowing," in a manner strikingly similar to Gay. Additionally, Eric Foner-a Pulitzer Prize-winning scholar whom I've also written about and who has spoken with my students-is quoted as saying that Goodwin and Ambrose "have violated very commonly understood standards of how one utilises and acknowledges the work of other scholars."

I also point out to students that even when mistakes are made, it's possible to learn from them and achieve future success. After all, Goodwin went on to earn the 1995 Pulitzer Prize in history for No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II. Surely, contrite students without the pedigree of professional academics can follow a similar path to redemption.

Understanding the Broad Spectrum of Academic Dishonesty

We broaden our dialogue to encompass other examples of academic dishonesty, extending beyond clear-cut plagiarism to include data manipulation, lack of citations, theft of ideas, unauthorized collaboration, and even outright fabrication in written and spoken forms.

With this in mind, we address another Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, Joseph Ellis, who lied to his students about his military service.

"He has said that he parachuted into Vietnam with the 101st Airborne, served on Gen. William Westmoreland's staff and protested the war at home simultaneously," my students read from another New York Times opinion article, "The Lies of Joseph Ellis." "In fact, his tour of duty was spent in a classroom at West Point, quietly teaching history."

I promise students that I'll always be honest with them and that if I don't know something, I'll admit as much. "It's a two-way street," I tell them. "We must be honest with each other and hold each other to account when we are not."

I'm careful not to alarm them with past tales of holding students to account. I avoid mentioning specific names, but it's crucial for them to be conscious of what others have attempted to pass off unnoticed. Let me be clear: My objective is to enlighten and educate, not to instill fear.

I urge students who cut corners to be upfront about it when questioned, especially upon being confronted with overwhelming evidence. It's particularly painful when a student, after making an obvious misstep, refuses to acknowledge or accept responsibility for it. In this scenario, it's difficult to help an individual learn from their mistakes and make any sort of recovery. I worry about their future in the classroom and in life.

In clear instances of plagiarism at my school, I notify the administration. Together, we work on a plan to help the student learn from their mistakes, which may involve a different approach depending on the infraction.

Integrating AI into Academic Practice

Without question, integrating AI into academic endeavors introduces a nuanced challenge. The ease of accessing and generating content might lead students away from in-depth analysis and synthesis of academic sources.

Though a formidable tool, AI demands judicious use. I instruct my students to employ AI as an aid to enhancing their understanding, pinpointing logical inconsistencies, or polishing their academic output. I was recently impressed by a colleague who had his students evaluate the quality of feedback that ChatGPT provided on their short-answer responses; I plan to do the same. This strategy positions AI as an asset in the learning process, supplementing rather than replacing the intellectual rigor of traditional research.

As an example, I tell students how ChatGPT nearly deceived me with plausible-sounding quotes from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Afterward, I ask them to evaluate AI findings rigorously, aligning them with established research and critically examining its accuracy and relevance.

I'm currently refining strategies for helping students accurately cite their use of AI in academic work. The objective is to create a clear framework that outlines the appropriate instances and methods of AI application, fostering transparency and integrity. In this regard, I plan to assign Samuel Mormando's terrific Edutopia article titled " A Stoplight Model for Guiding Student AI Usage," which provides actionable "red light, yellow light, green light" options.

Going forward, I remain determined to firmly embed the principles of academic integrity into my students' consciousness-and their consciences.

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To help students avoid plagiarizing, high school teachers can foster an environment where honesty and respect are values held in common.

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How Ethics Can Help You Make Better Decisions | Michael Schur | TED

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How Ethics Can Help You Make Better Decisions | Michael Schur | TED

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How Ethics Can Help You Make Better Decisions | Michael Schur | TED

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Integrity Ethics Teaching Guide: Overview of Modules and Learning Outcomes

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Integrity Ethics Teaching Guide: Overview of Modules and Learning Outcomes

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This teaching guide is a resource for lecturers

All 14 University Modules on Integrity and Ethics are freely available on the E4J website. Summaries of all the Modules, including their learning objectives, are provided below (click on the title to access the full module). Brief descriptions of all 71 exercises that are included in the Modules are summarized in the Table of exercises.

This Module provides a brief introduction to the concepts of integrity and ethics. It is designed to be used by lecturers who wish to provide their students with conceptual clarity and expose them to ethical dilemmas and ethical decision-making. The concept of integrity has been added to broaden the focus from the more traditional field of ethics. Combined, the concepts of integrity and ethics provide a more comprehensive perspective - they allow us to move beyond discussions about the difference between right and wrong in order to focus on relationships and behaviour as well.

Throughout the Module, students will be introduced to concepts and thrown in at the deep end by being asked to make decisions on what they would regard as the most ethical solutions to dilemmas. Students will be guided through three major ethical theories and challenged to agree or disagree with them. Students should not be afraid to take a stance, as this will enhance their learning and enjoyment of the Module.

The learning outcomes of this Module are:

This Module explores the existence of universal human values, which are those things or behaviours that we believe should be privileged and promoted in the lives of all human beings. A value is one of our most important and enduring beliefs, whether that be about a thing or a behaviour. Even though some values may be universal, they often arise from particular religious, social and political contexts. To understand this, students will examine one of the "universal values" within the United Nations system, i.e. human rights. Students will be introduced to the formation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and understand how it originated from debates among a multicultural group of individual philosophers, diplomats, and politicians. Students will undertake an active learning exercise to create a Universal Declaration of Human Values (UDHV) to reinforce these ideas.

The learning outcomes of this Module are:

Understand the ideas of values, ethics and morality in a multicultural context

Understand how universal values can be uncovered by different means, including scientific investigation, historical research, or public debate and deliberation (what some philosophers call a dialectic method)

Understand and discuss the idea of moral relativism and the challenges it poses to universal values

Critically assess the relationship between theory and practice in the formulation of values

Understand that values arise from lived experiences, but need to be justified to others

Understand the role of deliberation and debate in framing such values

Understand how to create an actionable document through such a process

This Module explores the importance of ethics to society and the relationship between these two concepts. It is designed to be used by lecturers to help their students understand the concept of society - sometimes defined as humankind as a whole, sometimes in relation to a particular place - and to investigate the ways in which ethical approaches can be applied to increase our understanding of society, and ultimately our attempts to improve it. It also aims to illustrate that ethics is part of the fabric of any dimension of society. Particular attention is given to social contract theory and the work of John Rawls, with specific reference to the concepts of justice and fairness.

The learning outcomes of this Module are:

We live in a world in which individuals, organizations, countries and societies are increasingly connected. Therefore, the impact of leadership - both good and bad - reverberates throughout entire political and economic systems. Greater connection equals greater influence, and this has changed the nature of leadership. Leaders have influence beyond their organizations, increasing the interconnection between ethics and good leadership. This Module is designed to help lecturers acquaint students with the theoretical underpinnings and practical applications of ethical leadership, taking into account the cultural diversity of contemporary organizations. The Module is structured around three major questions:

What is ethical leadership?

Why is ethical leadership important?

How can ethical leadership be promoted?

The learning outcomes of this Module are:

Define and give examples of ethical leadership

Understand leaders' ethical responsibilities

Explain effective ethical leadership

Assess ethical leadership

Identify ways to promote ethical leadership

This Module explores the concepts of diversity, tolerance and pluralism. It examines ways in which the acceptance of diversity may be challenging but can be understood and accomplished by drawing on ideas and examples of ethical behaviour. The Module provides a menu of options and approaches for addressing ethical challenges involving issues of race, religious belief, gender, sexual orientation, (dis)ability, political views, and a range of others. It illustrates the relevant concepts through discussing historical social systems in which tolerance and pluralism were evident, and historical role models of integrity who provided inspirational leadership in modelling diversity and acceptance in vexing situations. The Module also discusses moral quandaries in which solutions to a moral dilemma are not clear-cut and require specific forms of ethical reasoning. The discussion emphasizes and explores the importance of diversity, not only in the context of fairness to individuals and marginalized groups, but also as a means to improve society as a whole. The Module engages the students with a variety of pedagogical techniques, including mini-lecture, discussion, debate, and role playing, to encourage participatory decision-making within both hypothetical and real-life diversity-sensitive situations.

The learning outcomes of this Module are:

The Module seeks to help students understand some of the psychological mechanisms that can lead one towards unethical behaviour in certain circumstances. By discussing several well-known psychological experiments, the Module highlights certain basic human features which, while often working in our favour, can sometimes lead us to act unethically. The Module seeks to motivate students to take responsibility for their lives by avoiding common pitfalls that can impair their ability to act ethically. Experimental research suggests that self-control is essential to ethical behaviour, but that self-control is like a muscle that develops with exercise and becomes fatigued by overuse (Baumeister, 1999). This shows the extent to which keeping out of harm's way is perhaps as important as working to strengthen our capacity to control ourselves. For the purposes of this Module, taking responsibility for ethical behaviour in our lives means strengthening our self-control 'muscle' and learning how to avoid situations that may lead us to do things that we would later regret. The experiments discussed in the Module were chosen because of their pedagogical value, the issues they highlight, their relevance to the lives of students, and the diversity of useful materials (including videos) available for them. There are many other psychological factors that influence ethical behaviour, which are outside of the scope of this Module (some of them are explored in Modules 7 and 8).

The learning outcomes of this Module are:

This Module introduces practical strategies for taking ethical action in the workplace (in the public or private sectors), university, community and in life more broadly. Acting ethically is often not easy. As discussed in Modules 6 and 8, there are numerous psychological quirks and contextual pressures that often make it difficult to do the right thing. The present Module discusses several practical strategies that can help well-meaning people overcome at least some of these obstacles. The strategies explored in the Module go beyond merely raising awareness of the challenges and pitfalls that obstruct ethical behaviour. They are action-based approaches or methods that build capacity to act ethically. For example, the Module shows the extent to which script writing, action planning, rehearsal and peer coaching can help navigate challenging ethical situations even in circumstances that can lead ethical people to act in ways that contradict their genuine commitments. These action-based approaches draw on research and experience suggesting that capacity for ethical action can be built through training and good practice examples.

The learning outcomes of this Module are:

Understand how to overcome common psychological and contextual impediments for taking ethical action

Adopt strategies for taking ethical action that have been developed in different sectors and areas

Craft, refine and deliver scripts for enacting ethical action and build the habit to do so

Become more effective change agents

Apply peer-coaching techniques around workplace ethics conflicts

Evidence from behavioural science research has shown that people are less consistent and less rational in their decisions than they would like to admit to themselves. Sometimes a person may not be aware when his or her behaviour diverts from ethical standards. This is because justifications and biased judgment blur the perception of ethical breaches (OECD, 2018). This Module provides a brief introduction to the field of behavioural ethics, which studies the psychological processes that drive ethical and unethical behaviours. The aim of this Module is to provide students with insights into human behaviour that can be easily translated into actions they can take to create more ethical environments. The Module relies on students completing up to three surveys before class begins, as part of the preparation process. These surveys will provide data that can be used to illustrate concepts presented in the Module. Students will understand the concepts better when they can see those concepts in their own behaviour. The pre-class surveys are a critical innovation for this Module, as they illustrate not only course content but also how behavioural science is conducted.

The learning outcomes of this Module are:

This Module introduces the gender dimensions of ethics. It aims to increase students' awareness of how even implicit or unconscious gender-based prejudices and biases prevent individuals from leading an ethical life. The Module focuses on gender-based marginalization of women. This is not to suggest that men cannot be discriminated against. However, as recognized by the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), women are overwhelmingly subjected to several types of gender-based discrimination and violence throughout the world. The Module discusses different forms of gender-based discrimination suffered by women and considers feminist approaches that developed in response to these harms. It focuses on the relational feminist ethical theory known as the Ethics of Care (EoC) and shows how this framework can help in identifying and addressing gender discrimination. Although the Module focuses on the marginalization of women, many of its insights can be applied to address marginalization of other groups.

The learning outcomes of this Module are:

Correctly define basic gender concepts, gender discrimination and the Ethics of Care approach

Understand the ways in which people are marginalized based on gender, and that gender intersects other demographics

Define and detect sexism in one's own everyday life and understand the ways one can combat it individually and collectively as a generation, culture or community

Understand the movements and ethics of feminism in their historical context

Apply the Ethics of Care theory to address and prevent gender-based discrimination

Demonstrate what adopting an Ethics of Care approach and taking a moral position against gender discrimination mean in one's own everyday life

This Module discusses the relationship between the concepts of ethics and media. It aims to facilitate introspective reflection on the ways in which all of us, as individuals, play a part in the creation and dissemination of media. The Module explores the critical importance of ethics to both traditional forms of media, such as journalism, as well as modern forms of social media. The advent of social media technologies and digital news has increased the ethical responsibility of individuals in this field, especially given the global reach and powerful impact of these new media forms. These changes, together with fake news and increasing media restraints worldwide, render this Module important and relevant to students from all disciplines.

In recognition of this changing landscape, the Module extends the discussion of ethical responsibilities beyond professional journalists to news consumers, social media users, and the so-called "citizen journalists". It is designed to help lecturers enhance their students' understanding of who exactly a media provider or consumer is, and what type of ethical considerations need to be considered by those who are in these roles. The Module also seeks to provide students with an understanding of the detrimental effect that a lack of integrity and ethics in media provision and consumption can have.

The learning outcomes of this Module are:

This Module introduces students to the idea that integrity and ethics are key to sustainable business success. It examines the reasons why individuals in corporate entities should act with integrity and do business ethically. It further provides an overview of the building blocks of an effective integrity and ethics culture that supports businesses in acting as good corporate citizens. Compliance, which is a concept encompassing the measures that businesses take to adhere to standards, rules and regulations, is also an important part of any discourse on integrity and ethics and therefore is touched upon in this Module. Emphasis is placed on the role of codes of ethics or codes of conduct as tools for businesses to achieve both ethical behaviour and compliance. Although codes are only one component of an overall business ethics programme, they are a tangible way to actualize ethical practice in business.

E4J Integrity and Ethics Module 1 (Introduction and Conceptual Frameworks) defines the terms integrity and ethics, introduces basic ethical concepts and their philosophical roots, and demonstrates ethical reasoning and analysis. This Module builds on those discussions. A central message of the Module is that businesses need to adopt a comprehensive and multidisciplinary approach to uphold integrity standards and address ethical issues. The Module also briefly explains how businesses can contribute to the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

The learning outcomes of this Module are:

Why is it that some actions are legal but not ethical, or ethical but not legal? This Module is designed to be used by lecturers in a variety of disciplines who wish to introduce their students to the ideas of integrity, ethics and law, including what these concepts stand for and how they are different. Integrity, ethics and law are in the news daily and regularly impact students' lives, so all students will benefit from having a clear understanding of these ideas and the challenges they raise. The discussion of legal issues is basic, rendering the Module ideal as a component in non-legal courses and programmes. However, law students would benefit from this Module as well because it introduces a fundamental distinction that all law students will encounter: what is the difference between law and ethics? Thus, the Module could be integrated into introductory courses in law and national legal systems, courses in legal ethics, or any law course that raises issues of ethics.

The learning outcomes of this Module are:

This Module examines methods and approaches to strengthening integrity in the public sector. It is designed to be used by lecturers who wish to introduce students to the importance of public service integrity and the ways in which public organizations can promote ethical working environments. The Module explores the concept of integrity management in the public sector. It also discusses other ethical frameworks that apply to public organizations, such as codes of ethics and codes of conduct. After highlighting the importance of integrity in the public sector - or public integrity - the Module focuses on two main ideas. The first idea is that ethical behaviour is driven by both external and internal incentives. Therefore, establishing ethical public organizations requires processes that reach stakeholders' minds and hearts. The second idea examined in the Module is that strengthening the integrity of public organizations requires working in parallel on personal ethics, organizational culture, and management systems. The discussions build on the concepts elaborated in Modules 1 and 14. Going beyond theoretical and conceptual explanations, the Module includes interactive exercises that help students reach a deeper understanding of the issues.

The learning outcomes of this Module are:

Should a journalist publish very private information about someone to inform the public about an issue? Should a lawyer withhold confidential client information that would save someone's life? This Module is designed to introduce students to the nature, practices and importance of professional ethics. The Module first helps students distinguish professional ethics from personal and theoretical ethics, and then sensitizes students to a major issue raised by professional ethics, that of potential conflicts between role morality and personal morality. The Module also familiarizes students with professional ethics codes, something students will encounter when they begin employment in a profession. Students may have already encountered such codes that apply in the university environment, such as ethics codes for lecturers. The Module will help students realize the significance of professional ethics to various entities, including institutions, individuals, and society at large. By highlighting the importance of professional ethics, the Module will help lecturers encourage students to adopt an ethical orientation in their professional lives. If the Module is taught as part of a programme aimed toward preparing students for a specific profession such as medicine, business, law, education, or journalism, the lecturer is welcome to add examples and practices from those professions.

The learning outcomes of this Module are:

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Integrity Ethics Teaching Guide: Overview of Modules and Learning Outcomes

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United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime Web Site

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Integrity for Kids: Tips for Parents and Teachers

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Integrity for Kids: Tips for Parents and Teachers

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Choosing Honesty: Tips for Raising Trustworthy Kids

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Four Social Skills That Can Teach Children About Equity Based on MLK’s Ideals

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Four Social Skills That Can Teach Children About Equity Based on MLK’s Ideals

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Four Social Skills That Can Teach Children About Equity Based on MLK’s Ideals

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Here’s how to get started teaching kids to value differences, fairness, imagination and empathy, which can help them understand equity and justice so they can practice them later in life.

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15 Activities to Help Kids Develop Integrity

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15 Activities to Help Kids Develop Integrity

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Integrity involves honesty, strong values, and practicing good habits. Children learn integrity by discerning between right and wrong and understanding how their actions impact others.

Integrity makes children better decision-makers, dependable friends, and self-assured individuals.

Some activities you can try to reinforce integrity include trust exercises, journaling, storytelling, and volunteering.

Instilling integrity in children is a foundational aspect of their character development, shaping their moral compass and guiding their actions throughout life. Teaching kids about integrity isn't just about imparting values but engaging them in meaningful activities that reinforce these principles.

Through a range of interactive integrity activities, children not only learn the importance of honesty, responsibility, and fairness but also actively practice and internalize these virtues. Explore 15 activities to help kids develop integrity.

Definition of Integrity for Kids

Integrity is the quality of honesty, having strong moral principles, and sticking to them even when no one is watching. In kids, integrity develops through consistent modeling and guidance. Initially, it starts with teaching them the difference between right and wrong, encouraging honesty, and rewarding ethical behavior.

As they grow, experiencing the consequences of their actions and observing the behaviors of trusted adults further molds a child's understanding of integrity, shaping their moral compass and internal sense of right and wrong.

The Importance of Cultivating Integrity in Kids

Teaching integrity to kids is crucial as it lays the foundation for their moral development and shapes their character. It instills values that guide their actions, decisions, and relationships throughout life.

Integrity helps them navigate ethical dilemmas, fosters trustworthiness in their interactions and cultivates a strong sense of responsibility. Additionally, it contributes to their self-esteem, as acting with integrity often leads to a sense of pride and self-respect, enabling them to become conscientious and honorable individuals in society.

Overall, children who learn the importance of integrity experience increased happiness and satisfaction [*].

15 Activities to Help Kids Develop Integrity

Children aren't always motivated to choose the "greater good." However, trying these integrity activities can inspire them to do the right thing!

1. Lead by Example

Children take after others in their immediate environment. While they may not yet grasp the complexities of adult decisions, leading by example can help align their inner compasses. In fact, children can differentiate between right and wrong before they reach age two [*]. Model integrity by being honest, avoiding gossip, and being accountable for your mistakes.

2. Give Your Child Opportunities to Speak Up

Help your child establish their values and beliefs by providing opportunities to speak up. Start simple. For instance, you can ask them to decide what they want for lunch or dinner. If you're eating out, ask them to pick the restaurant. They'll develop a healthy sense of independence.

3. Share Your Experiences

Recount experiences that highlight moral dilemmas and discuss the choices you made. Encourage kids to think about what they would do in similar situations. For instance, you might discuss a time you had to tell a white lie to make someone feel better.

4. Try Trust Exercises

Trust exercises can be a fun and meaningful way to teach children about the importance of trust in relationships. Some trust exercises you can try are the trust fall, trust circle, and blindfolded obstacle course.

5. Praise Your Child for How They Exhibit Integrity

Integrity may not always come naturally to children, so praise them when it does! Tell them they're doing a good job when they're respectful and honest-it'll reinforce good behavior.

6. Host Playdates

Who your child associates with can significantly influence the kind of people they turn out to be. Get to know their friends by hosting playdates. Encourage them to associate with kids who are honest, communicative, and uplifting.

7. Encourage Small Commitments

Encourage kids to make small commitments and follow through on them. Promises can be as simple as feeding a pet or completing a task. It reinforces the importance of keeping promises and being dependable.

8. Reflect Through Art and Journaling

Allow children to express their thoughts and feelings about integrity through journaling, drawing, or other creative means. Being creative helps them explore their understanding of ethical behavior enjoyably.

9. Volunteer in Community Service Projects

Volunteer work or community service projects teach children the value of giving back, being compassionate, and acting for the greater good, fostering a sense of responsibility and integrity. Consider simple volunteer activities like handing out bowls at the local soup kitchen or donating kibble at the animal shelter.

10. Work on Your Child's Social Skills

Developing social skills is intricately connected to fostering integrity in individuals. Social skills encompass communicating effectively, empathizing, collaborating, and navigating relationships positively.

Use our social skills worksheets to widen your child's perspectives, build trust, improve their conflict resolution skills, and enhance cooperation.

11. Read Books About Integrity

Many classic children's book characters offer examples of positive moral behaviors. Charlotte from "Charlotte's Web," for example, does an excellent job of teaching children about friendship, kindness, and sacrifice.

Share our All About Integrity handout for an additional resource to supplement books and lessons on integrity.

12. Set Virtues Goals

Goal-setting is a healthy activity for motivating your child to do better. When setting academic goals, leave room for virtue-based goals. For example, if your child expresses that they want to be more patient, list actionable steps to achieve this, such as taking turns, sharing, and breaking down bigger goals into smaller steps.

Use our Goal-Setting Tips for Success handout to make specific and actionable goals.

13. Play "What If?"

Teaching integrity can be challenging if your child hasn't yet needed to apply it in real life. Playing "What If" introduces hypothetical situations that encourage children to reflect on their potential responses. You can provide scenarios, such as:

What if someone asked for too much candy from you? Would you give them all your candy? Why or why not?

What if someone asked you to play, but you were too tired? What would you say?

14. Create a Values Collage

Have children create a collage using images and words from magazines that represent values important to them. Encourage discussions about why those values are significant and how they relate to integrity.

15. Create a Kindness Chain

Start a chain where each link represents an act of kindness or integrity each child witnessed or performed. Encourage kids to add links with examples of ethical behavior, creating a visual representation of their collective positive actions.

The Bottom Line

Understanding integrity can be enjoyable for children and adults alike! Through reflection and self-awareness, children can learn what it means to be fair, kind, and self-assured.

Reinforce how to demonstrate integrity with the help of our character education posters.
Sources:

1. Ramaekers S. "The Narrative of a Happy Childhood: On the Presumption of Parents' Power and the Demand for Integrity." Power and Education, 2016.

2. Sloane S, Baillargeon R, Premack D. "Do Infants Have a Sense of Fairness?" Psychological Science, 2012.

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15 Activities to Help Kids Develop Integrity

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Learning about integrity allows children to practice good values. Here are 15 activities to help kids develop integrity.

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While it is each student's responsibility to understand and abide by university standards towards individual work and academic integrity, instructors can help students understand their responsibilities through frank classroom conversations that go beyond policy language to shared values. By creating a learning environment that stimulates engagement and designing assessments that are authentic, instructors can minimize the incidence of academic dishonesty.

On this page:

Why Does Academic Dishonesty Occur?

Academic dishonesty in the classroom occurs when one or more values of academic integrity are violated. While some cases of academic dishonesty are committed intentionally, other cases may be a reflection of something deeper that a student is experiencing, such as language or cultural misunderstandings, insufficient or misguided preparation for exams or papers, a lack of confidence in their ability to learn the subject, or perception that course policies are unfair (Bernard and Keith-Spiegel, 2002).

Some other reasons why students may commit academic dishonesty include:

Cultural or regional differences in what comprises academic dishonesty

Misunderstanding directions and/or expectations

Poor time management, procrastination, or disorganization

Feeling disconnected from the course, subject, instructor, or material

Fear of failure or lack of confidence in one's ability

Anxiety, depression, other mental health problems

Understanding some of these common reasons can help instructors intentionally design their courses and assessments to pre-empt, and hopefully avoid, instances of academic dishonesty. The following section provides strategies that promote academic integrity which can be adapted to any course format (in-person, online, and hybrid) and context.

The CTL is here to help!

The CTL can help you think through your course policies and ways to create community, design course assessments, and set up CourseWorks to promote academic integrity. Email ColumbiaCTL@columbia.edu to schedule your 1-1 consultation .

Strategies for Promoting Academic Integrity

In his research on cheating in the college classroom, James Lang argues that "the amount of cheating that takes place on our campuses may well depend on the structures of the learning environment" (Lang, 2013a; Lang, 2013b). Instructors have agency in shaping the classroom learning experience; thus, instances of academic dishonesty can be mitigated by efforts to design a supportive, learning-oriented environment (Bertam, 2017 and 2008).

When students feel supported in a course and connected to instructors and/or TAs and their peers, they may be more comfortable asking for help when they don't understand course material or if they have fallen behind with an assignment.
Ways to support student learning include:

Convey confidence in your students' ability to succeed in your course from day one of the course (this may ease student anxiety or imposter syndrome ) and through timely and regular feedback on what they are doing well and areas they can improve on.

Explain the relevance of the course to students; tell them why it is important that they actually learn the material and develop the skills for themselves. Invite students to connect the course to their goals, studies, or intended career trajectories. Research shows that students' motivation to learn can help deter instances of academic dishonesty (Lang, 2013a).

Teach important skills such as taking notes, summarizing arguments, and citing sources. Students may not have developed these skills, or they may bring bad habits from previous learning experiences. Have students practice these skills through exercises (Gonzalez, 2017).

Provide students multiple opportunities to practice challenging skills and receive immediate feedback in class (e.g., polls, writing activities, "boardwork"). These frequent low-stakes assessments across the semester can "[improve] students' metacognitive awareness of their learning in the course" (Lang, 2013a, pp. 145).

on course tasks by scheduling regular check-ins to reduce students' last minute efforts or frantic emails about assignment requirements. Establish weekly online office hours and/or be open to appointments outside of standard working hours. This is especially important if students are learning in different time zones. Normalize the use of campus resources and academic support resources that can help address issues or anxieties they may be facing. Help students manage their time(See the Columbia University Resources section below for a list of support resources.)

Provide lists of approved websites and resources that can be used for additional help or research. This is especially important if on-campus materials are not available to online learners. Articulate permitted online "study" resources to be used as learning tools (and not cheating aids - see McKenzie, 2018) and how to cite those in homework, writing assignments or problem sets.

Encourage TAs (if applicable) to establish good relationships with students and to check-in with you about concerns they may have about students in the course. (Explore the Working with TAs Online resource to learn more about partnering with TAs.)

Ways to cultivate a shared sense of responsibility for upholding academic integrity include:

Ask students to identify goals and expectations around academic integrity in relation to course learning objectives.

Communicate your expectations and explain your rationale for course policies on collaborative assignments, late work, proctored exams, missed tests, attendance, extra credit, the use of plagiarism detection software or proctoring software, etc.

Define and provide examples for what constitutes plagiarism or other forms of academic dishonesty in your course.

Invite students to generate ideas for responding to scenarios where they may be pressured to violate the values of academic integrity (e.g.: a friend asks to see their homework, or a friend suggests using chat apps during exams), so students are prepared to react with integrity when suddenly faced with these situations.

State clearly when collaboration and group learning is permitted and when independent work is expected. Collaboration and group work provide great opportunities to build student-student rapport and classroom community.

Discuss the ethical, academic, and legal repercussions of posting class recordings, notes and/or class materials online (e.g., to sites such as Chegg, GitHub, CourseHero - see Lederman, 2020).

Partner with TAs (if applicable) and clarify your expectations of them, how they can help promote shared values around academic integrity, and what they should do in cases of suspected cheating or classroom difficulties.

High stakes course assessments can be a source of student anxiety. Creating multiple opportunities for students to demonstrate their learning, and spreading assessments throughout the semester can lessen student stress and keep the focus on student learning (see for strategies on assessing students online). As Lang explains, "The more assessments you provide, the less pressure you put on students to do well on any single assignment or exam. If you maintain a clear and consistent academic integrity policy, and ensure that all students caught cheating receive an immediate and substantive penalty, the benefit of cheating on any one assessment will be small, while the potential consequences will be high" (Lang, 2013a and Lang, 2013c). For support with creating online exams, please please refer to our Creating Online Exams resource .
Ways to enhance one's assessment approach:

Design assignments based on authentic problems in your discipline. Ask students to course concepts and materials to a problem or concept.

Structure assignments into smaller parts ("scaffolding") that will be submitted and checked throughout the semester. This scaffolding can also help students learn how to tackle large projects by breaking down the tasks.

Break up a single high-stakes exam into smaller, weekly tests. This can help distribute the weight of grades, and will lessen the pressure students feel when an exam accounts for a large portion of their grade.

Give students options in how their learning is assessed and/or invite students to present their learning in creative ways (e.g., as a poster, video, story, art project, presentation, or oral exam).

Provide feedback prior to grading student work. Give students the opportunity to implement the feedback. The revision process encourages student learning, while also lowering the anxiety around any one assignment.

Utilize multiple low-stakes assignments that prepare students for high-stakes assignments or exams to reduce anxiety (e.g., in-class activities, in-class or online discussions)

Create grading rubrics and share them with your students and TAs (if applicable) so that expectations are clear, to guide student work, and aid with the feedback process.

Use individual student portfolio folders and provide tailored feedback to students throughout the semester. This can help foster positive relationships, as well as allow you to watch students' progress on drafts and outlines. You can also ask students to describe how their drafts have changed and offer rationales for those decisions.

For exams, consider refreshing tests every term, both in terms of organization and content. Additionally, ground your assignments by having students draw connections between course content and the unique experience of your course in terms of time (unique to the semester), place (unique to campus, local community, etc. ), personal (specific student experiences), and interdisciplinary opportunities (other courses students have taken, co-curricular activities, campus events, etc.). (Lang, 2013a, pp. 77).

Columbia University Resources
Resources for faculty: Resources for students: Student support resources: For graduate students:
Columbia University Information Technology (CUIT)
CUIT's Academic Services provides services that can be used by instructors in their courses such as , a plagiarism detection service and online proctoring services such as , a remote proctoring service that monitors students taking virtual exams through CourseWorks.

Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL)
The can help you think through your course policies, ways to create community, design course assessments, and setting up CourseWorks to promote integrity, among other teaching and learning facets. To schedule a one-on-one consultation, please contact the CTL at ColumbiaCTL@columbia.edu .

References

Bernard, W. Jr. and Keith-Spiegel, P. (2002). Academic dishonesty: An educators's guide . Mahwah, NJ: Psychology Press.

Lang, J.M. (2013a). Cheating lessons: Learning from academic dishonesty . Harvard University Press.

Lang, J. M. (2013b). Cheating lessons, part 1 . The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Lang, J. M. (2013c). Cheating lessons, part 2 . The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Additional Resources

Bretag, T. (Ed.). (2016). Handbook of Academic Integrity. Singapore: Springer Publishing.

Acknowledgement

This resource was adapted from the faculty booklet Promoting Academic Integrity & Preventing Academic Dishonesty: Best Practices at Columbia University developed by Victoria Malaney Brown, Director of Academic Integrity at Columbia College and Columbia Engineering, and Abigail MacBain, PhD student in GSAS. We would like to thank them for their extensive support in creating this academic integrity resource.

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While it is each student's responsibility to understand and abide by university standards towards individual work and academic integrity, instructors can help students understand their responsibilities through frank classroom conversations that go beyond policy language to shared values. By creating a learning environment that stimulates engagement and designing assessments that are authentic, instructors can minimize the incidence of academic dishonesty.

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Vol. 60

No. 6

Abstract

Guiding Students' Moral and Emotional Growth

Complex Interactions

Teachers Who Make a Difference

Depression and Disillusionment

Misconceptions About Adults' Moral Development

Toward Effective Moral Education

Schools can best support students' moral development by helping teachers manage the stresses of their profession and by increasing teachers' capacity for reflection and empathy.

Abstract

Guiding Students' Moral and Emotional Growth

Complex Interactions

Teachers Who Make a Difference

Depression and Disillusionment

Misconceptions About Adults' Moral Development

Toward Effective Moral Education

Once again, the public frets about whether children are becoming good people. Both conservative commentators, such as William Bennett (2000), and researchers, such as William Damon (2001), decry a steady rise in greed, delinquency, and disrespect. And once again, the public holds schools largely responsible for remedying these troubles.

"Solutions" abound. Many character education efforts in schools now focus on everything from community service to teaching students virtues, building good habits, rewarding positive behavior, and developing students' capacity for moral reasoning (Schaps, Schaeffer, &amp; McDonnell, 2001).

There is value in these solutions. Students surely benefit from performing community service, being reminded of important virtues, and practicing good habits.

But we have been wringing our hands and trying these solutions for decades, in some cases for two centuries, without fundamentally changing students' moral prospects. The moral development of students does not depend primarily on explicit character education efforts but on the maturity and ethical capacities of the adults with whom they interact-especially parents, but also teachers, coaches, and other community adults.

Educators influence students' moral development not simply by being good role models-important as that is-but also by what they bring to their relationships with students day to day: their ability to appreciate students' perspectives and to disentangle them from their own, their ability to admit and learn from moral error, their moral energy and idealism, their generosity, and their ability to help students develop moral thinking without shying away from their own moral authority. That level of influence makes being an adult in a school a profound moral challenge. And it means that we will never greatly improve students' moral development in schools without taking on the complex task of developing adults' maturity and ethical capacities. We need to rethink the nature of moral development itself.

Guiding Students' Moral and Emotional Growth

During the past decade, I have spent much time in schools and talked to many students. I have observed again and again students' exquisite sensitivity to the qualities of their teachers-both their fierce loyalty to the teachers they trust and their keen alertness to hypocrisy, injustice, and indifference. Research shows that even when schools are massively restructured, students often remain strangely oblivious to new structures and practices. When asked about the strengths and weaknesses of their schools after these reforms, students focus on the strengths and weaknesses of individual teachers (Warren Little, 1998).

In these relationships, moral qualities are shaped. Adults do not simply transmit moral qualities and beliefs to children. These qualities and beliefs emerge and continually evolve in the wide array of relationships that every child has with both adults and peers starting nearly at birth, and in children's felt knowledge of what is harmful, true, or right. In these relationships, children continually sort out, for example, what they owe others, what they should stand for, what traditions are worth keeping, whether to follow rules, how to contribute to their family, classroom, and community-in other words, how to be a decent human being.

Should I tell my teacher when I know another student is lying to her? Do I have to say yes to the girl who invited me over and who doesn't have friends, when I would rather play with another girl I like more? Should I speak my mind about an issue that's important to me, even though I may lose friends?

Fair, generous, caring, and empathetic educators model these qualities and can effectively guide students in sorting out these questions. Often adults are also effective when they express how their own moral questions are related to children's moral questions and when they model how to think through moral issues and dilemmas.

Teacher-student relationships shape students' moral development in another sense-through their influence on students' emotional development. Most of the talk about moral development in school assumes that we can teach students to behave morally by instilling in them virtues and standards, a clear sense of right and wrong. This assumption ignores the fact that emotions are often the horse, values and virtues the rider trying to hang on. Harvard child psychologist Jerome Kagan (1995) observes that violence prevention programs that explain to students the harmful consequences of violence often don't help because "children know violence is wrong-what they can't control is the shame and destructive impulses that fuel violence."

People do not usually lie, cheat, or abuse others because they don't value honesty and respect; more likely, they suffer from feelings of inferiority, cynicism, or egocentrism that blind them to others' feelings. Research suggests that such emotions as shame, anger, and cynicism in particular eat away at caring, a sense of responsibility, and other important moral qualities (Gilligan, 1996; Rozin et al., 1999). When people's moral beliefs conflict with their immoral actions, many will change their beliefs to accommodate their actions, not vice versa. They will justify stealing, for example, because "society is corrupt" or because "all people are basically self-interested."

Complex Interactions

What makes matters more complicated is that the influence of teachers and other adults on students' emotional and moral lives goes both ways, in complex reverberations and interactions that are often positive but sometimes clearly destructive. For example, Randall, a 7th grader who gets under everyone's skin, finds himself in a common kind of escalating war with adults. His constant antagonism makes it hard for teachers to see his perspective-one teacher calls him "a jerk," and the principal refers to him in even harsher terms-which makes him step up his provocations, further angering his teachers and the principal. Randall is spinning out of his school community. When I ask him whom he trusts, he holds up a piece of paper that is totally blank.

Often a chain of complex interactions among home, school, and peers shapes students' moral qualities and behavior. Consider Sally, a 10-year-old with Attention Deficit Disorder. Sally has a highly anxious mother and a father prone to spikes of anger. According to her psychologist, Sally is furious with them and isolates herself at home. At school, she has become increasingly disruptive and rude: She wrote on the chalkboard that her teacher is a bitch. Her teacher has little empathy for her, not only because of these attacks but also because she feels harassed and criticized by Sally's mother. At war with both her parents and her teacher, Sally looks to her peers for support. Other students, however, find her needy and rude. Sally becomes more provocative with her teacher, and the spiral continues downward.

Teachers Who Make a Difference

Many teachers, of course, are effective at identifying and turning around these downward spirals and at promoting key emotional and ethical qualities. Many teachers communicate high moral expectations and provide steady listening and opportunities for accomplishment that reduce students' shame and distrust. Many teachers learn from their own moral errors and continually develop their capacity to see the perspective of every student in their classrooms. I recently talked to a 4th grade teacher who told me that she thinks that a 10-year-old boy in her classroom has a more refined and complex sense of justice than she does-that he is more effective at working out conflicts in the classroom than she is. She said that she tries to learn from him.

I know teachers who work hard to enter the particular moral worlds of students. A high school teacher recently told me about his efforts not to condone but to understand why a student he admired had brought a gun to school. It turned out that this student went straight from school to work and returned home late at night. On his way home from the bus, he had to walk past a gang that had threatened him several times. Bringing the gun was not an act of provocation but an act of self-defense. This same teacher told me about his struggles to understand the religious orientations that underlie some students' moral thinking. He recalled how vexed a girl in his class became when he related that he did not believe in God. How can I respect your judgment and guidance, the student asked openly, if it is not rooted in a belief in God? The teacher realized the depth of his student's religious feelings. I have observed that other teachers consciously try to take the perspective of the children whom they find most frustrating.

Many teachers and administrators, however, clearly don't possess these qualities-or don't express them in their interactions with students day to day. These teachers and administrators don't reach out to struggling students, don't attempt to see students' perspectives, and have lost their idealism. What gets in the way of adults developing or expressing these qualities? And what can we do about it?

Depression and Disillusionment

Exact data are difficult to obtain, but I think that disillusionment and depression undermine large numbers of teachers in urban schools. I refer here less to the serious, acute depression that afflicts about 20 percent of U.S. adults (Beardslee, 2002) than to the steady drizzle of helplessness and hopelessness that can wear teachers down.

The litany of stresses that these teachers bear has become well known. They can't get textbooks and other materials; they feel stranded, marooned in their classrooms; they don't get adequate support from administrators; they don't believe that they have the skills to deal with problems that they confront every day. Even those teachers who develop the skills and knowledge to work effectively with individual students often become overwhelmed when they realize what it would take to work effectively with every struggling student in their classroom. "As a human, I may never be up to this," one told me.

A colleague who recently directed an institute for new teachers in Boston believes that new teachers suffer a kind of learned helplessness -a term coined by Martin Seligman at the University of Pennsylvania-a gradual sense of losing control (Peterson, Maier, &amp; Seligman, 1993). You can hardly set foot in an urban school these days without also hearing about the burden of managing students with behavior troubles. Some teachers feel physically at risk. One of my former graduate students was hurt while physically restraining a 2nd grade student; another 7-year-old told her that he was going to kill her. She came into my office in a kind of moral shock, a disbelief that this state of affairs existed. Most teachers have brought to this work their hearts and souls, and many have lost the belief that they can make a real difference in students' lives.

Research documenting what happens to adults when they get depressed may shed light on what happens to teachers who feel this chronic sense of helplessness and become burned out. Depressed adults often become unilateral and commanding in their interactions with other people. Their behavior tends to be governed by their own moods and needs rather than by an awareness of others. They tend to take the path of least resistance and do what requires the least effort. Often they become withdrawn, irritable, critical, or sometimes outright hostile (McLoyd, 1990). What's hard for them are exactly the qualities-empathy, patience, persistence, consistency, idealism-that are crucial for teachers to shepherd students' moral growth.

Misconceptions About Adults' Moral Development

Yet there may be a bigger obstacle to adults developing important moral qualities, and that obstacle is a fundamental cultural misconception about the nature of adults' moral lives. Most adults, including most teachers, don't view themselves as engaged in their own moral growth. We have the peculiar notion that our moral natures are established by late childhood-and that as adults, we simply live out the die that is cast.

Yet new models of adult development suggest that adults' ethical qualities do not remain static at all-they zigzag depending on many factors (Noam, 1995). Some adults become more generous and compassionate over time; others become more selfish. Some adults become wiser, more able to distill important moral truths; others' notions of fairness become more formulaic or coarse. Many people lose their moral enthusiasms. Every stage of adulthood brings both new moral weaknesses and new moral strengths.

This capacity for change means that the typical adult has not reached his or her moral potential. King Lear does not develop compassion or a mature sense of justice until he nears death. Schools face the challenge of creating cultures in which teachers come to view appreciating and being generous to others, acting with fairness and integrity, and formulating mature and resilient ideals as evolving and subtle capacities. "There is nothing noble in being superior to somebody else," civil rights leader Whitney Young says. "The only real nobility is in being superior to your former self."

Much of what passes for character education in schools simply has no influence on adults' emotional or moral qualities. The constant exhortations that teachers receive to become better role models generate by themselves neither the internal commitments nor the external guidance and support that teachers need to develop these qualities. Minimally, an effective moral education effort would include specific strategies for helping adults deal with disillusionment and helplessness and would focus on creating a culture that supports teachers in their emotional and moral growth.

Toward Effective Moral Education

Schools clearly can't respond to all the troubles that lead to helplessness and hopelessness in teachers. But they can focus on two prime causes: the strain of dealing with students with behavior troubles; and isolation.

Many schools now put a priority on helping teachers work with students with behavior problems, not only because these problems are so fraying to teachers but also because the problems undercut the learning of all students in the classroom. Happily, programs exist to help teachers deal effectively with these students. The best give teachers specific strategies and break down teachers' isolation, creating stronger, more caring school communities. An example is the Child Development Project, an elementary school program designed, implemented, and evaluated by the Developmental Studies Center in Oakland, California (Battistich et al., 1991). Among the many supports provided, teachers learn effective discipline strategies and receive help in developing students' intrinsic motives to act constructively and cooperatively, including engaging students in rule setting, decision making, and problem solving. Over the past four years, I have worked in two Boston elementary schools with Robert Selman, Bethany Montgomery, and Alison Auderieth on a similar project, which trains a diverse cadre of graduate students to work with schools on these goals.

Schools might also assist in getting the small number of teachers suffering from serious depression into treatment. Such treatment has dramatically improved in the past 25 years (Beardslee, 2002). I am certainly not suggesting that school administrators identify depressed teachers and pressure them into getting therapy. But schools could play a much bigger role by participating in the National Institute of Mental Health's ongoing public education campaign on depression awareness and screening, including using posters and other materials to inform both parents and teachers about the symptoms of depression and about treatment resources.

Although a mountainous literature exists on depression, psychologists have remarkably little understanding of dis-illusionment. They don't even have a vocabulary for talking about it. But disillusionment-especially the loss of a belief that they can make a difference in students' lives-is one of the biggest reasons that nearly one-half of teachers in the United States leave the profession within their first five years ( Education Week, 2001). Disillusionment is not necessarily bad. Strictly speaking, disillusionment is freedom from illusion. It is the ability to face and absorb a greater portion of reality-a foundation for wisdom and maturity. But disillusionment turns pernicious when it slides into helplessness and passivity-when teachers don't have the confidence, support, or opportunities for the creativity needed to master these realities.

There is a great deal of talk these days about stronger, more coherent mentoring programs for new teachers, and these new programs are vital for helping teachers work through disillusionment. Mentors can assist teachers in developing their competence and talents, but they can also be responsive to teachers at precisely those moments when new teachers' images and expectations about teaching collide with difficult realities. Mentors can help new teachers be realistic and take pride in seemingly small accomplishments.

Mentors can also help new teachers think about creative, diverse career paths within the teaching profession that might enable them to use their talents and have a larger impact on students' lives. Research suggests that using their talents and growing professionally are significantly more important than status or salary in boosting teachers' morale (Heath, 1994). A growing chorus of educators and researchers now call for revamping teachers' career opportunities to allow teachers to become innovative and entrepreneurial-for example, enabling them to start their own programs, conduct research, take sabbaticals in the private sector, or assume leadership roles.

Such changes as these should be one piece of a broad effort to support both teachers' ethical growth and their ability to guide students' ethical growth. New modes of professional development focused on improving instruction can teach us much in this regard. District 2 in New York, for example, has attracted attention for revamping professional development so that teachers regularly observe and reflect on one another's practice. Veteran professionals with expertise in such important content areas as literacy also coach teachers.

School districts need to do much more to promote professional cultures that focus on both academic instruction and developing adults' ethical awareness and skills. Teachers, guided by coaches, could provide feedback to one another on such topics as earning respect and trust, creating a caring community, dealing with challenging students, and identifying and reversing the downward spirals in which students and adults get caught.

Teachers need opportunities to reflect on why they have difficulty empathizing with particular students, on their successes and failures in cultivating students' moral thinking, and on the state of their own ideals. Teachers need emotional support from their colleagues in dealing with chronic stress. And administrators need to learn the art of creating opportunities for this emotional support without turning schools into the kinds of therapeutic cultures that would estrange many teachers.

None of this, of course, will be easy. But it doesn't have to be yet another task for schools already burdened with the hard work of improving instruction. Much of the work can be done in the context of what schools should be doing anyway to support new teachers and to promote good instruction, and much of it-creating strong communities, helping teachers manage students with behavior problems, increasing adults' capacity for reflection-will certainly serve academic goals. Best of all, this approach, unlike so many current character education efforts, stands a real chance of nurturing in children the qualities that they need to become caring and responsible adults.

References

Education Week. (2000, January). Quality counts 2000: Who should teach? Bethesda, MD: Editorial Projects in Education.

Kagan, J. (1995). Personal communication.

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Vol. 60 No. 6 Abstract Guiding Students' Moral and Emotional Growth Complex Interactions Teachers Who Make a Difference Depression and Disillusionment Misconceptions About Adults' Moral Development Toward Effective Moral Education Schools can best support students' moral development by helping teachers manage the stresses of their profession and by increasing teachers' capacity for reflection and empathy.

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Arts & Humanities

Social Studies

Brief Description

Three fairy tales challenge students to think about honesty, right and wrong, and other questions of ethics.

Objectives

Students will

listen to or read three popular fairy tales.

respond to questions those tales raise about ethical issues.

take a stand on the ethical question raised by the story From the Elephant Pit.

fairy tale, ethics, honesty, self-esteem, Jack and the Beanstalk, Puss in Boots, folk tale, debate

Materials Needed

Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students consider the ethics of characters in three fairy tales.

In "Puss in Boots," a clever cat engineers a succession of hoaxes and lies for the benefit of its master. As a result, the master eventually marries the king's daughter and appoints Puss in Boots prime minister, and all parties live happily ever after. Among the debatable questions inspired by this fairy tale are Was Puss in Boots wrong to lie to the king and deceive him?, Was the cat wrong to trick the ogre and then kill him?, and Is trickery ever justified? Challenge students to support their positions with at least three cogent arguments.

In "Jack and the Beanstalk," young Jack, whose impoverished mother is left with nothing but the family cow, is sent to market to trade the cow for as much money as he can. Jack trades the cow for a handful of beans and, in despair, his mother throws the beans out the window. Jack narrowly escapes from the giant with two stolen treasures that will secure the future for himself and his mother. Among the debatable questions posed by this story are Since the giant wanted to eat Jack, was it OK that Jack stole the giant's goose and harp? An older version of this familiar tale offers up some unique twists that will add to the debate: Since the giant had stolen everything from Jack's father, do you think it was OK for Jack to take it back?

A lesser-known Tibetan folk tale, From the Elephant Pit is about a hunter who happens upon an elephant pit, in which a man, a lion, a mouse, a snake, and a falcon are trapped. Among the debatable questions posed by this story are Was the hunter better off because he rescued the man from the pit? If yes, why? If no, why not?

Create a two-column graphic organizer for the first two fairy tales above. Print one of the ethical questions raised by the tale at the top of the graphic organizer. Print "Yes" at the top of the first column and "No" at the top of the other. As students share their responses to the questions, write the responses in the appropriate columns.

For a printable comparison chart, see Comparison Chart.

Provide students with a copy of a two-column graphic organizer such as the Comparison Chart. After reading the story "From the Elephant Pit," pose the question Was the hunter better off because he rescued the man from the pit? Let students consider both sides of the question by writing statements in support of a "Yes" and "No" answer in the appropriate columns on their charts. Then give students an opportunity to take a stand; they use the information on their graphic organizers to support that stand.
The lesson ideas above and more are posed in an Education World article by Elaine Lindy, an expert on storytelling for character education and CEO of Whootie Owl Productions. Lindy created the popular children's storytelling Web site, Absolutely Whootie: Stories to Grow By. To find more ideas for using fairy tales in classroom debates, as well as tips for managing a classroom debate on ethics, see the complete Education World article Using Fairy Tales to Debate Ethics.
Assessment

Students write a brief response to any one of the questions posed in the lesson; in addition, they might draw an illustration to accompany their writing.

Lesson Plan Source

Education World (with resources from Absolutely Whootie: Stories to Grow By

Submitted By

Elaine L. Lindy

For more information on debates, read our Lesson Planning article, It's Up for Debate!

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Debates in the Classroom: Fairy Tales and Ethics | Education World

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Arts & Humanities Social Studies Brief Description Three fairy tales challenge students to think about honesty, right and wrong, and other questions of ethics. Objectives Students will listen to or read three popular fairy tales. respond to questions those tales raise about ethical issues.

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Digital Citizenship: Lesson Plans, Games, and Professional Development

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Digital Citizenship: Lesson Plans, Games, and Professional Development

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DigCit Landing Page | Common Sense Education

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Common Sense is the nation's leading nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the lives of all kids and families by providing the trustworthy information, education, and independent voice they need to thrive in the 21st century.

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Integrity - Lesson Plans - Character Counts - Character Education

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Teaching guide ( discussion guide, lesson plans, teachers' guide ) for integrity. Produced in association with Character Counts! Classroom discussion questions, writing assignments, student activities. For grades 7-12.

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JA Excellence through Ethics | Junior Achievement USA