A Third Grade Curriculum in Character Education

Dr. Garcia describes her experience designing and§teaching a Character Education curriculum to third§grade students in a prominently low-income school in§suburban Pennsylvania. Her research is called§teacher-research and her curriculum was based on the§critical,multicultural and feminist pedagogies§existing at the time. After designing a curriculum§framework, Dr.Garcia describes in her narrative her§experiences putting into effect her framework. The§results of her written assessments are analyzed§qualitatively by themes, and are based on her§knowledge of some specific statements of the§critical,multicultural, and feminist pedagogies. Her§results point to the fact of existing relationships§between the moral development of the students with§their actual interactions with others, corroborating§the findings that moral development is essentially§relational in scope since a very young age. She also§asserts that student oriented cultural materials may§benefit the students'' literacy skills due to their§intrinsic personal context.She also asserts that the§media has a critical effect on the moral development§of the students and that educators need to teach§children how to evaluate the media.