Character Under Attack & What You Can Do about It

by Carl Sommer

Discover Why... Violent criminal activity, rates of imprisonment, school crime, sexually transmitted disease, teenage pregnancy, and suicide are escalating throughout America. In a nation that has drifted far from its core moral system, Carl Sommer's hard-hitting expose reveals the underlying causes and offers solutions for improving America's education and moral climate. Sommer, an award-winning author and educator, addresses the issues of moral relativism, the rise of anticulturalism, and the philosophical battle raging behind the lack of character in today's society of diminishing values. Character Under Attack examines the issues and provides practical advice on how parents and educators can create a more respectful society and produce successful children prepared to make this world a better place. Recognizing the spirit in which our Founding Fathers established this great nation, you'll discover from this well-documented book what went wrong and what you can do about it.

Genres: Nonfiction, Education

95 pages, Hardcover

First published October 28, 2004

Reviews

[Wendi Lau · Rating 2 out of 5]

The title is not an accurate reflection of the contents. It’s the reason I picked it up, and its lack is likely why I had trouble finishing the 102 small pages. Sommer writes about his problems marketing his series of children’s books containing lessons about character, the moral decay of school-aged children, and the school solution of character education programs. But he doesn’t address the crucial missing components of poorly behaved people: parents and religion. Educators can set behavioral examples and expect well-behaved students, but the institution of school cannot replace those two crucial elements. People must believe they answer to a higher power to behave unselfishly and civilly. The phrase: “Because it’s the right thing to do” and The Golden Rule are both rooted in religious teachings.

Before kids, while earning my master’s degree in teaching, I supported character education because it sounded good. As a parent, I do not. School can teach rules and facts. Character and values—that’s my job. Many people homeschool because they do not want school to teach values and behaviors that conflict with those of the family.

A book about character is incomplete without discussing poor or lack of parenting and the increasing atheism of the country contributing to a loss of character and good decision-making.

This historical placeholder reveals what happens when character education is handled by government institutions instead of parents. Twenty years after character education was implemented in schools, gullible, catch-phrase repeating people who accept mass media “news” coverage are the result.

[Tracey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book made me think about character education. At first, I was annoyed that the author appeared to be writing this book because he was upset that his character ed books were rejected by many different children's literary communities. However, once past that section, he made it more clear that was really upset at the TYPE of character education books that libraries and literary groups wanted. They did not want the type of books that TAUGHT morals; they want books where children are selecting the values they want to have.

So, I do understand and agree with the author. I just found this book difficult to read. I thought I would have zipped through this short, small book, but found I spent five days trying to get through it.

I was also a bit annoyed that he blamed schools while pointing out that children only spend 9% of their lives in school by the time they are 19 years old.

The book gets 5 stars in enticing me to think more about this subject, but 1-2 stars for its lack of ability to keep my attention. So, it averages to a 3 star rating.

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, a must read for anyone concerned about the moral climate in
America. If you feel that the lack of character and diminishing values is a real concern today, you will not be surprised at the author's dire predictions, that have indeed, come to pass.

[Janelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I might agree with the author's viewpoint, the writing lacked persuasiveness.

[Katy Lovejoy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Important book

[Karla Strand · Rating 1 out of 5]

The author blames moral relativism in education for the poor state of public school students in American today. While I don't completely disagree that teachers bear some (in some cases a lot) of responsibility for the moral education of their students, I do disagree with the author's presentation and (what I would consider to be) his extremism. For example, I don't agree that those in the queer community are to blame for the rash of venereal diseases among young people (page 38) or that teachers often promote lesbianism as a method to avoid pregnancy (page 46).

The book is written poorly and the author relies on US News and World Report, Houston Chronicle, Reader's Digest, and particularly biased materials as his main resources. The book is self-published and distributed for free. Lots of red flags here with regards to bias, trustworthiness, "research", and reputation.

[Matthew Summers · Rating 1 out of 5]

This guy is all over the place. He conflates hedonism with moral relativism, he uses petty anecdotes as evidence for broad and persistent trends, he thinks that being taught to question authority is the CAUSE of moral decay, and he makes all sorts of unfounded claims. Sommer has at best a superficial acquaintance with the philosophical debates he's engaged in. I literally had to force myself to read to page 50. I have no beef with conservative politics per se, but this guy makes his case as poorly as I have come across. The writing is bad, too. Don't waste your time. Read Alan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind for a scholarly critique of moral relativism and its consequences.

[Christeena · Rating 2 out of 5]

When a bad review drives you to question the entire human race this is the book you get. Honestly, there just isn't enough meat. The author is obviously upset about a review or group of reviews on his childrens books, he probably should have shrugged them off. As an educator I can attest to the fact that character is lacking in many of todays youth and their adult counterparts but this book didn’t offer reformative information, it was a statement of the obvious and an unmasking of anger.

[Psalmuel Zoe]

I'm grateful for this book because I might have unconsciously fallen into the trap of moral relativism and anticulturalism. The book helped to strengthen my conviction on traditional values.