Educating Character through Stories

Literature has been implicitly a means of moral and character education since the Greeks. Aristotle was not only the originator of virtue ethics, but wrote his Poetics about the impact of tragedy through hubris and character flaws. This book, emerging from the Jubilee Centre at Birmingham, makes a general case for character education as well as for stories as moral knowledge. It discusses approaches to and uses of stories for character education and the development of 'educated sensibility', drawing on a wide range of examples. It then presents the Knightly Virtues programme developed for primary schools and based on the five classic stories of El Cid, Don Quixote, King Arthur (Gareth and Lynette) and the Merchant of Venice. These are used to embody and illustrate virtues such as courage, humility, honesty, self-discipline, justice and gratitude. The feedback to the programme has been really excellent in terms of moral literacy and understanding as well as character formation. It has also encouraged a closer collaboration between home and school. For further details, see www.jubileecentre.ac.uk - where you can also sign up to their newsletter.