Abstract

After a brief discussion on the need for more effective teacher education programmes in the United States, the article presents a first attempt to link moral and psychological education with a teacher training curriculum. Employing a sample of pre‐service teachers, the course in educational psychology was redesigned to deliberately teach counselling techniques as a means of stimulating ego and moral development. The results indicate positive shifts on both the Loevinger test of ego development and Kohlberg post‐conventional moral maturity using the Rest, Defining Issues Test. The relation between teacher training and development is detailed. It is strongly suggested that teacher education should adopt a developmental framework for both goals and instructional strategies.