Across Alabama, school districts are increasingly adopting “character education” programs meant to promote respect, responsibility, and good behavior. These programs are often referred to as SEL (social-emotional learning).
The intent is understandable. Order matters. Civility matters. But behavior is not the same as moral formation.
For most of American history, education aimed higher than behavior management. From Aristotle to the American Founders, education was understood to include the cultivation of virtue – the habits of judgment and self-control that allow free people to govern themselves. Virtue education asks not simply how students act, but who they are becoming…