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Kohlberg TIPR

At which of Kohlberg's levels of moral development are the students in your class functioning? Cite specific evidence and explain your reasoning for selecting these levels. What did the teacher do, or what might be done, to help the students advance to higher levels with regard to the examples you supplied above? Be sure to underline the concept's vocabulary in your response. (Use your study guide as you go!)

 I think most of the students I'm observing fall into convention level of moral development. Most of them seem to really want the approval of the teacher and other students. A lot of them are the class clowns or "teacher's pet" during the class activities. They're participating and not causing problems, but they're definitely doing it for the approval of others. Some of them still demonstrate some instrumental orientation. One student was caught cheating and his justification was that the material was too hard--he thought it was unreasonable to expect him to know the content and so his cheating wasn't wrong to him. 

 I haven't seen anyone demonstrate post conventional moral development yet. However, I have heard a few discussion topics that make me think they might be ready to read arguments by people of that level of development. History is a fun subject to see the development of morality because, to some degree, history itself is the story of how humanity has developed new and progressive morals over time. Certainly the general consensus on moral behavior, like enacting slave codes, was significantly different in the early 1800s than it was in 1963. When I spoke to my cooperating teacher about this she said that she's had a handful or two of students who have developed substantial post conventional moral thought processes as juniors or seniors. These were often the kids who scored exceptionally high on her AP tests. She said she's had a lot more who can discuss these issues and begin the thought process with some help and guidance--so long as she frames the question in a way they understand, offers context, explanation, etc. But she said a good portion of the students can't reach this level even with substantial help or prodding. She tries to offer a lot of questions about moral dilemmas in order to give the students a chance to reflect on their own thought processes and experiences. She also has students share their thoughts when they're comfortable doing so, as hearing differing opinions and reasonings seem to help some of the students learn how to get to a higher level of thinking, and even possibly a higher level of moral development. 

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