Moral Intelligence
By Cayla Davenport
Michele Borba, Ed.D. is an
internationally renowned educator,
award-winning author, parenting
expert and child and adolescent
expert. She is recognized for her
practical, solution-based strategies
to strengthen children’s behavior,
character, and social development,
and to build strong families. A
sought-after motivational speaker,
she has presented workshops and
keynote addresses throughout
North American, Europe, Asia and
the South Pacific and has served as
an educational consultant to
hundreds of schools. Her proposal:
“Ending School Violence and
Student Bullying” (SB1667) was
signed into California law in 2002.
She offers realistic, research-based
advice culled from a career of
working with over one million
parents and educators worldwide.
 Moral Intelligence is an essential quality called “good
character”
 School should be a place where children can learn the
value of responsibility, caring, respect, and
cooperation by observing adults displaying those traits
consistently.
 Good discipline depends on teacher’s creating a moral
learning community in the classroom where students
can feel safe and cared about.
 Get into groups of three
 Assign roles: Eddie, Juan, and Teacher
 Read through the handout, discussing each step.
 If students persistently misbehave in school, their
character invariably diminishes.
 Teachers should target and address specific behaviors
that damage respectful classrooms and student
character such as:
 Vulgarity, Cruelty, Bullying, and Disrespect
 Teachers must help students replace these negative
behaviors with positive ones by teaching and
practicing:
 Responding, Reviewing, Reflecting, and Making Right
 Empathy- Notice when people are hurting
 Conscience- Sense right and wrong
 Self-Control- Behave properly even when tempted
 Think, Stop, Act Right
 Respect- Acceptance and tolerance of others
 Kindness- Consideration for the well-being of others
 Tolerance- Acceptance for the conditions and
behaviors of others
 Fairness- Treating others equally without showing
partiality
 85 Important Manners Children Should Learn:
 Polite words
 Meeting and Greeting others
 Conversation Manners
 Sports Manners
 Anywhere and Anytime
 Table Manners
 Telephone Manners
 Manners toward older people
Self-Restitution is a process used
when students who have
behaved inappropriately
1)reflect on the misbehavior
2) identify the need/condition
that prompted the misbehavior
3) create new ways of behaving
that correspond with the people
they are striving to be
Gossen believes this approach
fails because
1) it discourages students
from reflecting on their
misbehavior
2) it does not promote moral
growth or emotional
intelligence
With self-restitution, offenders can restore themselves and have a
sense of personal responsibility.
 Phase 1: Opening up the territory—maximizing freedom
 Does it really matter?
 Yes, if…
 Phase 2: Establishing the social contract and building a
sense of belonging
 What we believe in
 The Social Contract
 Phase 3: Establishing limits and clarifying personal power
 My job, your job
 Enforcing the bottom line
 Phase 4: Restitution—making things right and healing
oneself
 Teacher/student I want to be
Teacher I want to be
 “How can I best teach you?”
 “It’s ok to make a mistake—that’s




how we learn.”
Talk about needs of teacher and
students
Model self-restitution and use the
Restitution Triangle
Seek to understand others
Have fun teaching!
Teacher I don’t want to be
•Tells you what to think
•Does your work for you
•Criticizes or shames you
Student I want to be
 Learns new things and thinks for





self
Learns self-restitution
Identifies own needs and recognizes
needs of others
Has fun learning
Thinks about the ideal person to be
Helps make and maintain a Social
Contract with the class
Student I don’t want to be
•Tells you what I think you want to
hear
•Says “sorry” just to get off the
hook
•Watches the clock
Manners
Morals
SelfRestitution
Punishment
Virtues
4 Solutions
Time
Roles
 www.micheleborba.com
 Mosaic of Thought
 www.dailymoaner.com
 The picture of the boys fighting
 Clip art
 Reward/punish pictures
 http://www.mbl.is/mm/gagnasafn/grein.html?grein_id=734996
 Picture of Diane Gossen

http://aubrey.sd41.bc.ca/admin/principalsmessage.html
 Restitution Triangle