In the article, Teachers as Role Models, Angela Lumpkin (2008) outlines how the focus of the current educator has negatively impacted student wellbeing. Lumpkin (2008) believes education now centers around academic achievement and retracts from concerns about a student’s wellbeing. This focus is generated by the pressures of standardized testing and a country’s desire to compete on a global stage.
Lumpkin (2008) stands behind the belief that the push to compete on a global stage has caused the value of education to be weighted based on academic scores or graduation rates. Lumpkin (2008) attempts to encourage educators to make classroom decisions based on moral and societal virtues. By imbuing students with moral and social virtues, the author believes that students will be more likely to acknowledge, own, and learn from their mistakes.
The course, Behavior is Language, Jackson (2016) supports the positive impact of students being able to own and learn from mistakes through its use of verbal and written debriefs. Debriefs scaffold the same concepts discussed by the article, Teachers as Role Models Teaching Character and Moral Virtues, where students are expected to react in a typical manner based on societal norms.
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Any deviation from the norm is perceived as a cause for behavioral remediation. For successful remediation to take place, a student must first take ownership of their actions. Lumpkin (2008) agrees with this statement and cites a survey conducted by the Josephson Institute of Ethics to further its belief. The survey demonstrates how moral and social virtues of youth appear to be on the decline based on student responses about their moral character and an educator’s shift to meet 21st-century demands.
Lumpkin (2008) goes on to say that educators have long been tasked with the role of the model citizen to students especially during the adolescent years of education. As a role model, educators are expected to exemplify the highest standard of morality and character. This placement of teachers alongside state and federal standards has resulted in a recent number of unforeseen side effects.
Lumpkin (2008) believes the revered role of the educator and the increase of academic pressures has caused increased teacher burnout and minimal focus on overall character growth. The article Teachers as Role Models, believes the appropriate course of action is refocusing the purpose of education to building good moral character in students by utilizing the educator has a positive role model.
Reference
- Lumpkin, A. (2008). Teachers as Role Models Teaching Character and Moral Virtues. Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance, 79(2). Retrieved from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07303084.2008.10598134
