Unaddressed Issues

Moral education and character education: their relationship and roles in citizenship education

“…The skills needed to judge the deeds of representatives and to initiate action are both important; civil discourse need not lack passion; (…) classroom study and community practice both play a role in forming citizens' (p. 218). At least within the scope of educational theory (practitioners tend to be more practical and eclectic in their methods and orientations), the radically experiential doctrines of the progressive education movement (that tended to underestimate the fact that not all experience is educative, the significance of prior knowledge for further learning, and the need for systematic, structured and sequential learning) today have minority status, as have advocates of factual literacy, like J. Martin Rochester (2005), who insists on the exclusive priority of solid knowledge in claiming, 'The 'social curriculum' can become a major distraction from teaching the substance of history and related subject matter. The more time spent on cultivating 'civic virtue', the less time can be devoted to developing cognitive competences and skills' (p. 654).…”