But who shall teach the teachers themselves?

In sixth grade, my teacher was teaching us the things she was taught in ed school. We had a whole section on developmental psychology that focused on a couple of prominent thinkers. Lawrence Kohlberg was one of these thinkers. I remember this because when we put on a class musical most of the script was developed from my rough draft and I named one of the characters, also an educator, Kohlberg.

Now I've rediscovered him via Cardinal Pell of Australia:

The endorsement of law as “form” which allows us to reject any determinate “content” and to construct our own content is common to various subjectivists, intuitionists, and Kantians. It is found, for instance, in the still-influential writings of Lawrence Kohlberg.

For the earlier Kohlberg at least, morality is simply certain rational constraints upon freedom; morality is the content-free requirement of form upon our reason. Kohlberg himself equivocated over whether morality is truly empty of content or gives us a little guidance. It is certainly hard to take seriously the notion of morality as contentless logic—a kind of color-in-the-picture-for-yourself ethics. Anyone in a real-life situation that requires moral strength, honesty, and accuracy would surely be repelled by the advice that “morality has nothing to say about the details of your choice; it’s all up to you.” To say this is to abandon people when they most need and expect guidance.

I don't remember if I was taught "Early Kohlberg" or "Late Kohlberg." I do know that a friend of mine who is getting a Masters in Education has studied him, since she brought up one of his developmental progression schemata in a discussion once without naming him. The quality-erratic Wikipedia article confirms my impression that it was pretty wacky.

Kohlberg committed suicide by "walking into the Atlantic in 1987," a sure way to inspire confidence in one's system of ethical reasoning.