Professor Cho Byeok presents the goals of character education as the 'Three Rules' and the implementation strategies as the 'Six Practices' so that teachers and parents can independently review, design, and practice character education at school and at home.

The three rules are 'self-regulation, relationship regulation, and public interest regulation', meaning 'regulating oneself on an individual level, coordinating with others in relationships, and lastly coordinating for the public interest.'
When these three abilities are properly exercised, desirable behaviors emerge, and teaching the skills of coordinating these three abilities is the task of character education.
The six specific behavioral standards for character education are 'autonomy, rationality, positivity, emotional coaching, position, and adulthood.'
It's about specific ways to love yourself and others and become the master of your own life.


This book, consisting of four parts, explains in Part 1 why character should be recognized as a skill and why efforts should be made to achieve it, based on the historical, cultural, and academic backgrounds.
In Part 2, the direction in which character education should proceed is proven through scientific research results.
Part 3 presents the six principles of character education, supported by extensive longitudinal research, to demonstrate the specific forms of desirable behavior that character education aims for.
Part 4 contains methods of character education that adults should first show to children in communities such as home, school, and society.

Be your child's best mentor.

Character education is the education that turns children into adults.
What teachers must impart is wisdom before knowledge.
Knowledge can be obtained at any time from books and the Internet, but wisdom is only passed down from person to person.
First, an adult must show his or her adult self.
First, a person who has lived and become an adult is called a 'teacher'.
Parents and teachers are the best mentors to show their children what it means to be mature.

There's a reason we have to do these difficult things.
Korea is now facing a major limitation.
The education we have had so far has been upward education.
There is no idea of ​​what to do when you go up, no vision, no goals.
“Study hard and you will be able to give to others.” This common encouragement from adults to children is incredibly pitiful.
This is a statement that encourages extreme selfishness.

Now, we need education that moves forward, into the future, rather than just upward.
To move forward, we must choose adventure over complacency, challenge over giving up, and give over taking.
Instead of climbing higher to eat the fruit of the tree that others have planted, we must move forward and plant new trees.
So, we must make it possible for those who follow us to obtain more abundant fruit.
Rather than education for social advancement stained by competition, zero-sum games, and winner-take-all, character education is necessary to practice future-creating education that opens a new world through cooperation and sharing.

Discover the desirable behaviors and practices we should be demonstrating to children at school, at home, and in society!

"Character is true ability." This is something I've been emphasizing at every opportunity for over a decade.
Character is not a personality, it is a skill.
It is not something you are born with, it is something you learn.
Temporary
It is not an act of kindness, but a habit that persists.
Character is the ability that enables us to study and work, and in the future, character will become even more essential for leadership.
We need to invest in character and place character within the realm of ability.

Of course, a good personality has value in itself.
However, there is a separate reason why we emphasize character by using the word “ability.”
If you don't emphasize character as ability, the choices will be divided into character or Korean, English, and math.
This is because most people are worried that in that binary choice, they will choose Korean, English, and math, which are considered skills that will lead to success when they go out into society.

But character is not an either/or proposition.
Since both studying and character are abilities, you can't give up on either one.
---From "Chapter 3: Character is the Key to Success"

Korea has one of the highest divorce rates in the world.
But divorce isn't something where you live together on good terms and then one day shake hands and say, "Let's break up from now on."
If a couple gets divorced, it means they fought for 5 or 10 years, not 1 or 2 years.
You may have fought in front of your children, exchanged harsh words, and even thrown punches.
The poison that parents pour on each other is inevitably passed on to their children.

In Korea, where divorce and the destruction of families are just beginning, it is still unclear what negative effects and harms will follow.
But we can foresee our future by looking at the United States, where the breakdown of families occurred 30 years before Korea.

American society is in great pain right now.
I was seriously ill.
Yet, Korea is busy benchmarking that society.
As long as we continue to imitate the West, it is highly likely that Korea will become a seriously ill society in 30 years.
Because Korea is a rapidly changing society, it could become a sick country like the United States in 10 years.
The next 10 years are the 'golden time'.
Within 10 years, we must resolve issues that threaten humanity, such as low birth rates, divorce, and suicide.
---From "Chapter 6: Fundamental Obstacles to Character Education"

They use foul language as if it were nothing, commit gang rape, and even force their juniors to have sex with them.
When I see children doing this, it really seems like the devil exists.
How could all these good children be so hideous when they are born?
When people are overly stressed, they become escapist or aggressive.
This is not only due to violence, but also to poor learning and dropping out of school.
In fact, the cause has already been revealed through numerous studies.
Among the causes identified, the most important is environmental factors.
Children experience great stress in environments where adults are oppressive, immature, or irresponsible.
The frustration, despair, and helplessness of being deprived of freedom manifest as irritation.

---From Chapter 8, “Where Do Children’s Problem Behaviors Come From?”

When stimulated, emotions, which are physical reactions, occur in all reptiles, mammals, and primates.
However, humans (primates) are different from reptiles and also different from mammals.
Emotions become feelings,
Then comes the desire, and then the action.

During this process, people can show different reactions to the same stimulus.
A single emotion can lead to different desires, and the same desire can lead to completely different behaviors.
You can cry out loud in sadness, or you can turn your head and look at the distant mountains with sadness.

The existence of diversity at each level of emotion, feeling, desire, and behavior means that there is room for choice.
Humans can react in different ways to a single stimulus.
That is, humans can choose.
This is an ability that only humans have.
Mammals also have some choices.

Of course, there are people who cannot choose their reaction.
For example, people who are angry get angry and swear at others because they feel bad.
It's no different from an animal that only does one predictable action in response to one stimulus.
He is a person without character.
We cannot discuss character unless we properly understand the world of emotions.
---From Chapter 11, “Why Emotions Are Important in Character Education”

To keep your relationships from smelling bad, you need to share small, frequent positivity.
Showing affection, respect, gratitude, and consideration should be done frequently. Doing them all at once is not only ineffective, but also a waste of time and energy.
A person who best exemplifies this principle is President Obama, the master of relationships.

There is a famous anecdote that was broadcast on the news a while ago.
Obama walks to board the helicopter
It is going on.
A soldier standing guard next to a helicopter salutes.
Obama seems to be deep in thought and just gets into the helicopter without even looking at the soldier.
But Obama comes right back down.
And then he shakes hands with the soldier and says a few words.
One is a private, the other is the president.
Not receiving a private's salute once is such a minor thing that no one would take issue with it.
But Obama didn't let that little thing pass him by.

This is what leadership is.
This is how people with the best character, personality, and humanity live their daily lives.
Obama didn't shake hands with the soldier because he was great.
It's just showing respect to humans as humans.
This was possible because I always believed that all humans are equally valuable.
---From "Chapter 19 Positivity: 'Nevertheless, I See a Bright Future'"

I believe that the root of character is the ability to self-regulate, regulate relationships, and coordinate for the public good.
I believe that the most effective way to educate character is to develop the ability to practice these three principles.
Let's take a simple example of self-regulation.
When people get angry, they get angry.
And then they swear, assault, or do something they later regret.
So in character education, we teach students to control their anger and patience.
It sounds good, but is it easy?
Character education is not about teaching patience, but about teaching the difference between being angry and getting angry.
We need to let them know that anger is an emotion, that anger is an action, and that there is a choice in how they act.
And then, teaching how to express the anger you feel and how to express it in a desirable way is character education that corresponds to self-regulation.

---From Chapter 23, “How to Make the Flower of ‘Humanity’ Bloom”