Virtues

A study determined if exposing middle school students to stories and poems that show what virtues look like, how they are practiced, how to recognize them, and how they work, would have a significant effect on the degree of assimilation of these virtues expressed by the students. Sixth-grade students (n=23) attending a suburban middle school in Union, New Jersey completed a pretest to determine their thoughts about values. Following the pretest, the students read a unit of moral literature and examined such character traits as honesty, compassion, courage, perseverance, and patriotism. Discussion groups and related writings were integrated with the literature. Upon completion of the unit lessons, students were administered a posttest to determine their knowledge of values and the influence that values have on behavior and beliefs. They were asked to reply "yes " or "no " to questions dealing with values an