“Know Your Kids, Understand Yourself, and Find a Way”: One Elementary School Physical Education Teacher’s Efforts at Employing Character Education

Abstract

Background: Research concerning the philosophy of character education has been largely inadequate and anticlimactic. Purpose: Informed by a combination of emergent, novel, and nontraditional techniques, the purpose of this study is to describe one elementary school physical education teacher’s efforts at employing character education. Method: The participant was Paris, a White, abled-bodied female with 41 years’ experience. Utilizing an exploratory case study design, data were collected with eight interpretive techniques and analyzed using thematic methods. Findings: Paris employed a “content-based approach” to teaching character education and taught the moral content of human flourishing, virtue, and practical wisdom via jump rope, rock climbing, and parachute-based physical education content. Her character pedagogies of affect were explicit and implicit in nature and shaped around the skills themes, multiskill, and multiactivity pedagogical models. The factors influencing Paris’ efforts were identified. Conclusion: This study contributes to the affective literature from a theoretical, methodological, and practical perspective.