Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, Volume 29, Number 1

Character matters in learning and teaching. Richard Osguthorpe, coauthor of The Moral Work of Teaching and Teacher Education: Preparing and Supporting Practitioners (2013), argues that being a teacher goes well beyond delivering content to valuing and caring about students as people--that is, that teaching is a moral undertaking. As Osguthorpe describes it, the moral work of teaching comprises "the aspects of teaching practice that are inherently connected to the moral domain--any issue that relates to what is good, right, virtuous, and caring in our personhood, actions, and relationships with others. These issues include those that are connected to the teacher being a morally good person, as well as to the teacher having an impact on the moral development of students" (Hawkins, 2015).