Re: a March 31 letter entitled "Fayette Curriculum: Is it "character training" or indoctrination?"

Its major premise was that "most parents have no problem with schools teaching academics. The problems begin when schools cross the boundary of teaching academics and start teaching morals, ethics values, and how to think in order to be a 'good citizen.'"

I would like to respond to this letter. I did my Ph.D. dissertation on "The Implementation of Georgia's List of Core Values." To say character/citizenship education is my "bandwagon" is an understatement! I have been researching moral development and values education in America's public schools since 1987.

A 300-year review of the history of American public education shows that public schools, since the inception of the free common schools, have defined education to include academics and "other than academic" matters such as socialization, interpersonal relationships, intrapersonal reflection, and values. The values transmission roles of society's schools have both legal and "conventional wisdom" support. I won't quote all the legal precedents here, but I'd be happy to share them any time.

This definition of education as having dual objects was somewhat compromised in the 1960s, '70s, and '80s when all of society's authority and absolutes were questioned during the anti-Vietnam Era.

The "Old Morality" which had established absolutes was thrown out for the "New Morality." Teachers were told to be "values neutral" and not to say that a student's values were right or wrong.

Values did not totally drop out of public education, but it appeared in the form of Rath, Harmon and Simon's "Values Clarification" curriculum.

All of us are familiar with the negative and unproductive statistics that came out of this era. Schools doubted their ability to even establish schoolwide discipline plans. The major offenses in schools used to be chewing gum, running in the halls and littering. At the end of the '80s the major offenses were now drug use, teenage pregnancy, violence in the schools, attacks upon teachers, and a "me-istic," self-centered generation. As the Bible described it, it looked like "everyone was doing right in his own eyes."

These negative social statistics caused the educators to go back and reexamine the dualistic definition of education. People like Dr. Kevin Ryan wrote books entitled "Reclaiming our Schools" ( 1992).

The battle cry was still, "Why Johnny Can't Read," but it was also "Why Johnny Can't Tell Right From Wrong" (William Kilpatrick, 1993).

Ryan and others again brought to the attention of educators and parents that it takes character, perseverance and a strong work ethic (all values!) to support academic achievement. You can't just educate a child's head. A head running down the halls alone looks mighty silly. But you must educate the whole child, his head, his heart, and his hands.

Dr. Thomas Lickona of Boston University has developed an excellent comprehensive approach to character education which includes the human development domains of moral knowing (cognition), moral feeling (affect) and moral doing (behavior).

The authors of the March 31 article asked whether it was character training or indoctrination. Yes, it is indoctrination of sorts, but every society such as a democracy which juggles the moral character (individual rights) and the moral consensus (social responsibilities) has a vested interest in passing on to the following generations what that society has learned over the years.

The Romans defined education as both inputting scholarly information and values that the society had learned from tradition, as well as drawing out the student's inborn potential, and allowing at least a respectful discussion of that scholarly information and values.

That is what a democracy is. It has a "risk factor" in that the democratic society has a vested interest in an educated and moral citizenry. The risk is when you graduate the student, and then he or she walks into the voting booth!

Yes, I believe character/citizenship education and academics should be how our American schools define "education."