Ethics Camp Offers Sessions on Alternative Education, Catechesis, Literature, and Core Curriculum

When a young man is sent to juvenile hall for stealing a car, it is unlikely that he simply did not know he was doing something wrong. Instead, according to Steve Johnson, juvenile offenders are tripped up by poor emotional management, a lack of coping skills, and other obstacles that get in the way of behaving ethically.

Johnson, director of School Programs at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, has worked with staff of the Osborne School at Santa Clara County’s Juvenile Hall to integrate ethics into their curriculum. He brings insights from that experience to a special session of the Center’s popular Ethics Camp aimed at educators who work with at-risk students. "Building Character: Changing Thoughts, Values, and Behaviors," one of four camps to be offered this summer, "focuses on practices that build character with students who tend to be oppositional, defiant, assaultive, or difficult to teach," Johnson said.

Other sessions concentrate on character and literacy, character education in Catholic schools, and ethics in the core curriculum. In each five-day program, teachers learn how to teach ethics, be effective role models, and facilitate character development.

"Teachers are already role models," Johnson says. "Ethics Camp gives them the additional tools to hone and expand that role to include everyday ethics, social thinking, values, and behavior. We teach them how to incorporate character education into their classroom instruction and how to cope with the realities that get in the way of ethical behavior."

For information on fees and registration for Ethics Camp, please click here.

You can also contact the Center at 408-551-7049.