Ethos Education Winter 2013/4 | Page 31

Informal curriculum The CBSC project offered informal curricula to promote students’ moral ‘knowing, feeling and actions’. For example, discussing the meaning of school core ethical values in students’ class meetings; making a ‘moral/ character education passport’ recorded with School X’s core ethical values for every student; holding inter-school activities mixing service learning with inter-school interactive activities and strengthening the active role of students’ representatives involved in meetings and workshops. According to interviews and observations, the most impressive ‘curricula’ for students were inter-school activities. Students of experimental classes visited one neighboring elementary school and then invited approximately sixty students of the school to visit their campus. They made a great effort to prepare for this campus tour, activity arrangements (e.g. flexible basketball game), and performances (e.g. singing songs by boy scouts, doing magic tricks). The majority of students provided positive feedback (e.g. confidence, cooperation, and caring) on their wonderful experiences according to interviews and observations. Hidden curriculum The CBSC project of School X aimed for a campus with suitable core ethical values, notably respect and love for others through diversified channels. To this end, the coordinator set up a website of moral and character education to announce news, to share valuable materials and to share these with other teachers, parents and students. Administrators held a ‘warming evening meeting’ entitled ‘Love is Flying’ for all staff and students of School X. In addition, experimental group teachers displayed their teaching materials posters which related to moral and character education in order to share these with other teachers and students in school hallways. However, it revealed some negative feedback towards the hidden curricula. Some students expressed their frustration at being chosen as experimental group members, even though all of them had agreed to participate at the project’s start. They also complained about certain teachers’ insincere behaviour. ethos magazine interesting curricula aspects for students were social studies classes involving interviews and observations, because the teenage students liked to have opportunities to express their viewpoints and to debate with other classmates. Student progress Indicator 8 aims to improve students’ moral and character development. The CBSC project in School X offered several strategies to evaluate its effects of the process and product. First, the CSCE members held regular monthly meetings to reflect on and revise the overall effectiveness of the project. Second, I individually interviewed the members and representatives of students, students’ parents, teachers and administrators in order to explore their perceptions on students’ progress in moral and character education. Furthermore, I conducted a quasi-experimental design for experimental classes in order to test the effects of the project for students’ perception of their school culture. According to statistical analyses, the experimental group students scored higher than the control group. School atmosphere Indicator 9 focuses on cultivating school atmosphere with principles of justice, caring and positive discipline. School X, according to my observation, was pervaded with negative school culture at the beginning of the CBSC project. For example, the coordinator sometimes had grievance against the principal’s misunderstanding and staff’s passive behaviour. A few students and parents distrusted school’s policies and refused to be involved. After one and a half years implementation of the project, staff’s negative performance changed marginally because they found their school had acquired reputations for moral/character 29