Moral Traits Curriculum for Kids

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In a moral traits curriculum, or any type of curriculum you're going to be creating, you want to make sure to start from the very beginning. Find out about a moral traits curriculum for kids with help from a longtime and dedicated educator in this free video clip.

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Video Transcript

Hi, my name is Tina Gutierrez-Brewster. I'm an English teacher. Today, I'll be discussing with you a way to create a moral traits curriculum for students. In a moral traits curriculum, or any type of curriculum you're going to be creating, you want to make sure to start from the very beginning. Something very basic that a few people overlook is identifying the purpose. When you're creating a curriculum, you want to figure out firsthand why you're teaching it, what your goals are, what your objectives are, from the very beginning. This is going to help you clarify and give yourself a vision of what the students are going to attain in the process of this curriculum. The second thing you want to do is collect data. That may sound more complex than it is. It basically means to figure out from your classroom what is most needed. What are the needs of the students morally? Do you see some students that are very, very responsible? Or, they're very, very high in integrity, but maybe they're low in honesty. Evaluate that beforehand. You can do this through observation. We do this a lot naturally just watching the kids. Also, we can talk to the parents through surveys, whatever you want to do beforehand to set this up. Now, the biggest one is the teaching aspect. When you teach, there are four different ways that you can do this - teaching the moral traits. You can do it in a visual manner. You can do it in a written manner. You can do it in an active manner, okay? And, the last thing is, you can do this in a - if you want to tie this into active - is a role-playing manner. Get into a little bit of specifics of that in a moment. So, when you're teaching visually, you want to at least present to them what moral traits are. What are the things that make us who we are as good civilians of the community? Show that on a poster. Do that in a display on the whiteboard. Whatever you want to do. Give it to them first. When you do a written assignment, you can give them ideas for what is a caring person, and they can writer out a sentence or two about what they have seen as a caring personality trait. They can share their own experiences, that's also very, very helpful for having the students in a learning process. Actively, these kind of tie together. Active can be anything from getting up into the front of the room and presenting their ideas for what moral traits are all about, to sitting down and working with a group about something that you see as not being morally right. Have them get up and going, because that's also going to really, you know, strengthen the learning process. Finally, role-playing, I give it its own category, because that's always a great way if you want students to visually see, hear what exactly moral traits are all about. Have one student act out as somebody who is irresponsible, and another person being very responsible. Show, you know, what the difference looks like. That's always very fun, too. Finally, when you are finished with your curriculum, you do want to make sure that you assess and evaluate what's been learned, meaning you can give them a quiz, or you can just do a discussion at the end. A lot of teachers that do moral traits type of curriculums do like to it more of a Socratic method - questions for them, and they can, you know, question each other, "What does it mean to be an honest person?" This can actually go from first grade all the way through high school, and hopefully that'll be a little bit more, you know, helpful for those that are trying to teach a moral curriculum class. Once again, my name is Cristina Gutierrez, and that was a way to create moral traits curriculums for kids.


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