Abstract:
This study was conducted with the aim ofinvestigating teachers' passion for teaching, teachers' beliefs
and practice of character education and also examining the relationship between teacher passion and
teaching character
in second cycle elementary schools ofAxum town. A total of168 teachers (120 males
and 48 females) participated in the study. All the teachers who were teaching in second cycle ofall the
elementary schools in the town were taken
to participate in the study using comprehensive sampling.
Purposive sampling technique was also employed
to select 12 (6 highly passionate and 6 less passionate
teachers) as participants
for interviews, observation and informal conversation. Questionnaire that
contained items on socio-demographic variables, close ended items
of scales on view of teaching life,
scales on belief about character education
and scales on instilling character traits was used to collect
information from the teachers. Semi structured interview, observation and informal conversation were
also conducted
for the purpose oftriangulating the data obtained through the questionnaire. Data were
analysed through one sample
t- test, independent sample t-test, Pearson correlation coefficient, multiple
regression analysis and narrative description. The findings disclosed that teachers have low passion
for
teaching, highly positive belief about character education and tended to practice character education.
-... The independfnt sample t- test, however, indicated that teaching character varied across teacher passion
and sex but not across subjects taught and beliefs ofteachers about teaching character. The correlation
also unveiled that there was a strong
andpositive relationship between passion and character education.
Moreover, passion predicted teaching character. These imply that being a civic teacher alone or having a
positive belieffor character education
to be offered in schools does not guarantee teachers to teach good
character
to students. At the same time, being a natural science or mathematics or language teacher is
not an excuse for 'not teaching good character. Rather, passion for the profession matters. Thus,
principals, parents and students were recommended to let teachers enhance their teaching passion by
showing them that they are valued
andrespectedprofessionals.
