Kohlberg’s 6 stages
One of my favourite lessons to teach kids when I am doing my resilience course with them is
the one on moral maturity. I learned it in the traditional way when doing my psychology degree, but later came across the teachings of Rafe Esquith who teaches it to kids in a much simpler way. Briefly, the levels are as follows:
Level 1 – The child is motivated by avoiding punishment
Level 2 – The child is motivated by receiving rewards
Level 1 and 2 empathy is all about themselves
Level 3 – The child wants approval Level 4 – The child is motivated by rules
Level 3 and 4 empathy is about fitting in with a group
Level 5 – The child wants to be considerate of others
Level 6 – The child has a personal code of conduct that they follow
Level 5 and 6 empathy is more about what is good for society
I find it really easy to teach this to kids and they usually snap it up and are motivated to aim higher. However, I get just one lesson to teach it. Teachers are in a position to have a whole lot more fun with this! Rafe Esquith would teach it to his class early in the year and for the rest of the year, class language would be around these levels.
This is easy to do – I use a poster with the stages of frog development and have paraphrased the levels into child language (I want a reward, I don’t want to be punished, I want someone to notice and like what I do, etc). I then illustrate to the kids what it would look like if someone was using that level on them, or if an adult was behaving like that, a child behaving like that, etc. I then get them to offer examples they can think of. Thereafter, one could point it out every time something happens where these levels are evident. For example, if the class is offered the chance to watch a movie if they concentrate hard and finish their work quickly – you could ask them what stage that is and what they could do to aim higher.
The aim is to get children to the point where they are trying to be considerate. They are quiet in assembly because they are considerate of the one trying to speak. They do their work quietly in class because they are considerate of the other kids trying to concentrate. They pick up after themselves because they are considerate of the person who would have to do it if they don’t. Once kids are ready to move up a stage, using appropriate language will encourage them to become more aware of it.
With my own children, I am working on consideration and so most of my language with them points out that I would like them to do something because that would be considerate, or I am not really pleased about what they did because now this has caused these consequences and that is not really considerate, and so forth. They aren’t even aware of what I am trying to do (move them up a stage in their moral maturity) but are moving in that direction anyway.
My suggestion for teachers is to be creative with this. Teach it early in the year and then point it out whenever it comes up. Have a poster in the classroom reminding kids (and yourself) and in so doing, you will be encouraging kids to develop their moral maturity over the course of the year.