Character Education in Canadian Schools

In Canada, education is primarily the responsibility of the ten provinces and three territories. At the end of the twentieth century, Canada saw a significant shift in its education approach, particularly in Early Childhood Development (ECD). Every province and territory recognized that ECD, together with it's broader partner, character education, represented an investment in Canada's future and that the skills and qualities built during this stage create lasting advantages throughout a child's lifetime.

Generally, there are three primary principle approaches to character development through character education.

1. The Traditional Approach - suggests that universal values exist and must be taught to students explicitly by direct instruction.

2. The Developmental (Progressive) Approach - is considerably less rigid than the traditional approach. It encourages critical thinking and experience, and suggests character development of students is accomplished through the involvement of democratic decision-making, consideration and discussion of moral dilemmas and cooperative learning. This program was mandated by the Premier of Ontario to be introduced into every school in Ontario during the 2007-2008 school year.

3. The Caring Approach - stimulates the development of a positive school culture through the promotion of socially responsible and respectful behaviours. The approach promotes the belief that all students deserve a learning environment in which they are safe and feel welcomed, respected, and inspired to meet high expectations for learning. A growing number of character education practitioners have suggested that the development of a caring school community is a critical factor in the effectiveness of character education.

The Ontario Ministry of Education has actioned two initiatives in particular which combine the Developmental (Progressive) Approach and the Caring Approach into one singular approach - i.e., Finding Common Ground: Character Development Initiative (Ontario 2006), and Caring and Safe Schools in Ontario, Safe Schools Action Teams (Ontario 2008) into one free-standing methodology.

In addition to the three approaches to character education referred to above, there is a growing curriculum of additional approaches which have gained great prominence in Canadian schools;

• Global Competencies and New Pedagogies for Deep Learning - more than 140 countries have already embraced a system of competency frameworks. The Counsel of Education Ministers Canada (CEMC), building on strong foundations of numeracy and literacy, represents the Pan-Canadian effort to prepare Canadian students for the future. The program has been implemented in varying degrees in all 13 Canadian educational jurisdictions.

• Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) – this approach was founded in Ottawa, Ontario 22 years ago. It is a proactive process where children organize and apply knowledge, skills and attitudes in order to develop healthy identities, manage emotions, achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions. In our review of the status of character education programs across Canada, it is clear that the majority of education systems employ the SEL as an important teaching practice.

• Service Learning - this approach relies on a method of teaching and learning that integrates community service activities into the academic curriculum. Within service learning, students partake in service within the community and reflect upon and address local and national problems. Service learning has established itself as a significant component of character education programs which is why it remains an important part of the INSPIRE Learning Program.

There is a great deal of flexibility in the SEL, Global Competencies and Service Learning approaches to teaching that lead to some interesting outcomes. For example, the Canada West Foundation conducted a specialized study, at the heart of which was "career competencies", geared to determine whether outcomes of the

corporate talent recruited for the private sector were enhanced through the use of the Global Competencies framework approach to character education. A second example relates to Indigenous students attending the three territorial schools. In Nunavut, the education system has captured the cultural history and values inherent in its eight Inuit Principles. These concepts are then woven throughout the curriculum thus preserving their ways of knowing and living.

It seems clear, therefore, that character education in Canada has become highly diversified since the early 2000's and to a large extent left behind some of the traditional approaches which even today are characterized as being overly rigid and uniform. Our conversations with many practitioners in the field have clearly demonstrated a keen and bold interest in the growing diversity of the field. They seem to have established a cross pollination regimen operating between the various character education program approaches and which, not surprisingly, are expanding exponentially. But we best be careful; a diversified group of educators might quickly muck-up the character education playing field much to the lugubrious, mournful response of many other planners, teachers, administrators and learners.