Work Harder and Be Nicer: Gritty Character Education and Rigor (Mortis)

This paper is a critical exploration of recent trends in character education that test and train students in perseverance and speed through “rigorous” curricular implementation. Biographical accounts of “bad” students, such as Antonia Darder, Albert Einstein, Ansel Adams and Paulo Freire will be used to critique the terminology of education. In particular we want to see a revolution in curriculum and pedagogy from depersonalized “objectivity” to personal agency, from rigor to vigor from benchmarked standards to imaginative engagement and from bureaucratized necrophilia to learner centered biophilia.