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Character Education

By Daniel Kerr
26-Feb-12
Character Education


Daniel shares weekly insights as an educator through his blog Monday Musings. He is the Middle School Principal at the Shanghai Community International School, China
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So I had an interesting tour with a prospective family this week, where we spent a lot of time talking about what goes into a successful International School education, and what it was specifically that our school planned to teach their kids. The talk eventually turned to the idea of building character in our students, and these skills, values, morals and ethics that surely must be taught as an integral part of any school curriculum. That discussion reminded me of a similar conversation that I had a few weeks ago with Bret, which was geared toward looking at ways to bring character education more to the forefront of our Middle School. I decided to do some research into schools that currently have a successful character education program, and what I found out was interesting and encouraging.
Essentially, from what I’ve read, effective character education must be taught through the modeling of faculty, through a purposeful tie in to the curriculum, and through an attention and focus on school climate and culture. To work properly, the program must be championed by not only the school but by the community as well, using common language, similar approaches to discipline, and by embracing opportunities to showcase and celebrate good choices and good decisions by students. Successful schools also tend to have robust advisory programs where students learn about building positive and lasting relationships, bullying prevention, academic and personal integrity, self esteem, responsibility, independence, and risk taking.
The National Character Education Partnership (a non-profit American organization) says that the goal for schools is to “develop students socially, ethically and academically by infusing character development into every aspect of the school culture and curriculum. To help students develop good character, which includes knowing, caring about and acting upon core ethical values such as respect, responsibility, honesty, fairness and compassion.” My personal belief is that we have a responsibility as adults and educators to not only model strong character traits with our students, but to TEACH these specific skills through our own advisory program and in our day-to-day lessons. Bret, Mark and I are looking at ways that we can embed these types of lessons into our Dragon Time initiative for next year, and we’re in the process of identifying some common language that we can all start using with our students. When you think about it, and honestly answer the question, “What do we want to teach our students when they’re under our care?”, nothing is more important than character in my opinion.
What kinds of young adults are we graduating and sending out into the world? Are they Kind, Empathetic, Responsible, Courageous, Respectful, Honest, Trustworthy, Open minded? Do they have Integrity and Perseverance? I want to make a specific attempt to weave character education into the fabric of our school, but obviously it’s one thing to say it, and a very different thing to make it a reality. It starts with us, and how we carry ourselves, how we treat each other, how we treat our kids, how we respond to set backs, and what kind of energy we bring to school every day. Take an honest look this week at how students perceive you as a role model, and as someone that they might choose to emulate. Our students are looking to us, so let’s make them inspired by what they see. Have a wonderful week everyone and remember to be great for our students and good to each other.
Quote of the Week………
The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically.
We must remember that intelligence is not enough…….
Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.
- Martin Luther King Jr.
Article #1 – Developing Character in Schools Developing Character in Schools (http://www.mondaymusings.org/?p=432)
Article #2 – In Order to Succeed, Students First Need to Learn How to Fail In Order to Succeed (http://www.mondaymusings.org/?p=432)
Character Education Websites
http://charactered.net/main/traits.asp
http://www.character.org/key-topics/what-is-character-education/
Other blog posts by Daniel:
>>Empathy and Social Perspective
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Blog post titled "Character Education" posted on February 26, 2012
Follow Daniel and read weekly insights from an international school administrator: http://www.mondaymusings.org




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Comments

05/03/2012 - Pauldufficy
Nice work Dan