Character is an evaluation of any individual's moral qualities. The concept of character simply implies a variety of attributes which includes integrity, courage, fortitude, honesty, loyalty, or virtue. Albert Einstein once said, "Most people say that it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character." This shows how important character is to mankind but it remains a controversial issue as to whether character can be taught or not? In my perspective, I believe that character is taught and not made.

Firstly, characters are taught because one's character can be influenced by one's parents or teachers. The parents or teachers are pillars of influence for their children or students. A child can be instilled with the right values at a tender age. During this formative period of child's development, they have to learn to differentiate between what is right and what is wrong. Children are not born to know the differences of right and wrong and hence, parents play a dominant role in instilling a sense of conscience and morality in their child. Thus, characters can be taught.

Furthermore, the environment around the children also plays a role. When a child is 'thrown' into an environment whereby their peers are all of a good character, they would get influence by them too and will feel discriminated or embarrassed by doing something that their peers are not doing. In the environment, the child also needs someone who he can look up to or learn from. Thus, having a role model is also important to the development of a child. If the child is always influenced with the positive things and not the negative ones, he will eventually become a person with good character. Thus, it is possible for character to be taught.

In addition, character can also be taught through the influences of the media. From the media, the child can be educated of the positive and negative aspect of character. For example, when a child is watching a television programme that is showing on the need for helping the poor and needy in Africa and urging that everyone should play their part in helping these emaciated people, wouldn't the child be influenced to do something to help the poor and needy people? Another example is when a child reads the newspaper when an article showed that many of the donation drives are trying so much to help out the orphanages and old folks' home, wouldn't the child will also think that since others are helping out so much, why don't they help out too?

However, some may argue that there are instances whereby parents are of a good background and do everything they can for their child but still turns out to be a 'bad egg' and ruin the family's reputation. The child may go to extremes and have criminal tendency. However, this only happened to the minority and this can also be caused by other factors such as negligence that eventually led to the poor character building in the child. Thus, it is still manifest that character can be taught.

In conclusion, I would like to reiterate my point again. Character can be taught as we can see that majority of the children will be influence by the different approaches and it is only the small portion of them that are indifferent to these influences.

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