CHARACTER AND CULTURE IN EDUCATION

Abstract

Every once in while we need to go back and analyze which were the roots and goals of education. Was it to educate individuals, communities or the whole society? In this labyrinth of wide variety of systems of education it seems that we moved from the original idea of “improving the society” into creating and ideal teacher. However, this ideal teacher would be full of skills and instruments but not very worthy if it lacks character. The paper argues on the dilemma raise by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that argued that .. “education has both a utilitarian and a moral function”. He asserted that reasoning ability is not enough, and this is particularly evident in the present educational reality in which the sense of success and the virtue of the society are more often valued through individualism. The paper raises the dilemma if the purpose of the process is the individual or the community? Also, is the success of the educational system measured by the number of individual experts or the impact they have in the surrounding or the global environment? Is character in education a moral category or it includes cultural factors that are non-visible and sometimes non-measurable?