KOHLBERG'S IDEAS AT WORK IN THE CLASSROOM


Level 3: Postconventional

Universal Ethical Principle Orientation

  1. An elementary school class has little discipline problems with onesimple classroom rule: "Respect everyone in this room"(Lickona, 1995).
  2. A combined first and second grade class makes its own rules during thefirst month of the year according to a class meeting in which all students areasked to reflect on what is right and wrong and why things are right and wrong.
  1. This same teacher later added another rule to her list: "I will nottolerate any racial, ethnic, or sexual slurs in this classroom. It is not fairto erase someone's face. In this room, everyone is entitled to equal dignity asa human being. (Johnson, 1992)"
  2. At a high school for girls in Chicago, math classes studied demographicfacts related to hunger , and religion classes discussed the question of "Whatis our ethical and religious responsibility for the starving people of theworld? (Lickona, 1991)

For further reading on the fostering of moral development in children, thereader is directed to the work of ThomasLickona.


This tutorial contains examples from thePreconventional andConventional stages of MoralDevelopment as well.