Chapter 11—
Become a
The school itself must embody good
character. It must progress toward
becoming a microcosm of the civil, caring, and just society it seeks to create.
—“Eleven Principles of Effective Character Education”[1]
Over time the de facto mission of our school
has evolved into helping our students get into Stanford. I’d like us to be asking, “Are we developing
a better person, a fuller person, a healthier person in every sense?”
—A
Character education is about becoming a school of character, a place that puts character first.
How does a school become such a place? How does it become a community of virtue, where qualities such as best effort, good judgment, a positive attitude, a sense of justice, respect, integrity, and kindness are modeled, upheld, studied, celebrated, and practiced in every part of the school’s life—the example of adults, the relationships among peers, the handling of discipline, the content of the curriculum, the school environment, the conduct of sports and other extracurricular activities, and the treatment and involvement of parents?
How does a school develop this character-centered sense of its mission? How can it help students develop, in one principal’s words, “the sense that they are moral agents—able to create a better character for themselves and a better world for us all”?
It’s not hard to tell when a school is failing to be a school of character. In the halls there’s often rowdy, coarse, and disrespectful behavior— bad language, peer harassment, and, especially at the middle and high school levels, sexual talk and behavior. Many students are late for class, and many don’t demonstrate a strong work ethic in class—or, if they are working hard, are not above cheating if that’s what it takes to get good grades. Faculty morale is low. One of the reasons it’s low is that teachers have lost confidence in their moral authority and have given up correcting behaviors that didn’t used to be tolerated in school. Said a mother in a middle-class community to her high school son, whose language at home had taken a turn for the worse: “Swearing is a habit—what if you slip in class?” “It doesn’t matter,” he said, “only two of my teachers don’t allow swearing in class.”
Many schools, however, have been able to create an environment of character, marked by high expectations for both academic performance and student conduct, and every school would like to attain that ideal. “Give me a blueprint,” one high school principal said. In actuality, there’s not a single blueprint for becoming a school of character. Study 20 different schools—elementary, middle, and high schools that have achieved National Schools of Character recognition, for example—and you’ll find 20
different stories, each reflecting the creative ideas of the people who shaped the character effort. But beneath the great diversity of character education success stories we can identify some common strategies that can guide any school. Taken together, they provide a game plan for starting, sustaining, assessing, and continually improving a systematic effort to educate for character.
These strategies for becoming a school of character can be summed up in three words: staff, students, and parents. Those are the three groups whose involvement is crucial to the success of a school’s character education initiative. Strategies for involving parents were described earlier in Chapter 3, and strategies for involving students in a character education effort will be described in Chapter 12. Strategies for involving the whole community in order to extend character development beyond the school are the focus of Chapter 13. This chapter focuses on where character education typically begins, with the school staff. And that means all the staff, not just faculty and administrators, because everyone—including secretaries, coaches, custodians, cafeteria workers, and bus drivers—affects the character of the school and therefore the character development of students.
1. DEVELOP A CHARACTER-BASED
The first step in becoming a school of character is to develop a mission statement that articulates high ideals of moral and intellectual character. Effective schools, like other effective organizations, have a clear sense of mission that imparts a strong sense of purpose to people’s work.
Below, for
example, is the mission statement (abridged) of
We
enhance the emerging potential of our young people as successful students,
caring persons, and responsible community members. To develop the whole person within the whole
community, we:
·
Provide
a healthy learning environment in which all community members treat one another
with dignity and respect.
·
Embrace
scholarship, the arts, athletics, and community service as equally important
mediums of learning.
·
Expect
community members to accept responsibility for their personal growth and the
positive growth of others.
Here is the mission statement of The Classical Academy, a K-12 charter school, the largest in Colorado; note its implied emphasis on the primacy of parents in a student’s moral and intellectual growth:
The
And here is the mission statement of The Summit Country Day School, a pre-K-12 Catholic school in Cincinnati; note its emphasis on the primacy of spiritual development and service:
The
mission of The Summit Country Day School is to challenge every student,
faculty, and staff member to share fully the gifts that have been given to them
by God; to grow in grace and wisdom; to develop spiritually, academically,
physically, socially, and artistically; and to become people of character who
value and improve the world they inherit.
The challenge, of
course, is to find ways to make a school’s mission statement a living document—alive in the hearts and
minds of staff and students, so that it truly motivates and guides the behavior
of school members. One K-8 school in
2. HAVE A CHARACTER-BASED MOTTO
One way to keep a character-centered mission in everyone’s consciousness is to create a school motto that concisely captures that mission—and then weave that motto into the fabric of school culture. Here are three such mottos:
Good character is what you feel in your heart, think in your head, and do
with your hands. (elementary school)
Treat others as you wish to be treated. (middle
school)
Today your best, tomorrow better. (high school)
Purpose, Pride, and Performance. (high school)
The
last of these is the motto of
3. SEEK THE PRINCIPAL’S
SUPPORT FOR
MAKING CHARACTER A
PRIORITY
The first task of
leadership, as character educator
As one example of
such a leader, Ryan describes Washington Jarvis, author of Love and Prayers: A Headmaster Speaks to the Next Generation and
head for the past 28 years of Roxbury Latin, widely recognized as the most
outstanding secondary school in the
Welcome to Roxbury Latin.
We have all been anxiously awaiting your arrival. I have called you here to tell you the
single most important thing about your new school. (Pause.)
We, here, care more about your character, about the kind of person you
are becoming, than anything else.
He
then pauses and leaves the stage. His
message is underscored and amplified in the months that follow by every adult
in the building, from teachers to coaches, from administrators to custodians.[2]
It’s
difficult to overstate the importance of the head or principal in shaping the
culture of a school. Regardless of where
an educational reform initiative originates—from a state mandate, a superintendent’s
directive, or an impetus within the school—the building principal is the single
most important person affecting whether that initiative succeeds. One simple reason for this: The priorities of the principal become the
priorities of the staff.
During the eight years our Center for the 4th
and 5th Rs (Respect and Responsibility) has conducted Summer
Institutes in Character Education, we've found that when the principal, or the
principal's clearly designated representative, attends at least part of the
Institute as a member of the school's team, there's a much better chance that
character education will subsequently be implemented in that school. The principal’s participation in learning
about character education, presence on the school’s character education
leadership committee, practice of setting aside time at faculty meetings for
ongoing discussion of character development, regular communication with parents
about the school’s character-building efforts, and expectation that all staff contribute in some way to the school’s character
education work—all these send a message about how important character education
is to the person who leads the school.
This doesn’t mean the principal has to be the hands-on
leader of character education implementation.
We worked with an elementary school north of
What if character education isn’t one of the principal’s
top priorities? Then other school
personnel who do see the need for a character program have the task of persuading
the principal that his or her priorities—whether improving academic
performance, reducing discipline problems, or increasing parent involvement—can
be achieved more easily when a school commits seriously to becoming a school of
character. Examples of schools that have
achieved better learning and better behavior with the help of character
education are a good way to make this case. Another argument in the case for character
education is that most states now have some sort of a mandate—either
legislation or a State Education Department directive—requiring schools to do
character education. If staff can’t get active
leadership or strong support from their principal, they should at least seek the
principal’s permission to present the idea of character education for consideration
by the full staff.
4. FORM THE
LEADERSHIP GROUP(S)
Besides support from the principal, becoming
a school of character needs a central leadership group that plans and oversees
implementation. Our experience in
working with schools over the past decade leads us to make four recommendations
regarding the character education leadership of a school:
* Consider whether it will be more effective to create a
new committee to head up a character education effort or to make use of the
school’s already established infrastructure.
An example of the latter: In Calvert County, Maryland, then assistant
superintendent Dr. John O’Connell asked the existing School Improvement
Committee in each of his county’s 20 schools to form a Character Education Subcommittee
responsible for leading the character initiative in its building.
* In addition to a central leadership group or steering
committee, establish early on several smaller committees or subcommittees, each
with a different task. This divides the labor
(there’s too much for one group to do) and gets more people involved (the broader
the participation, the broader the ownership).
For example, one elementary school in
* Extend an open invitation to all interested staff to join
one of the character education committees but also reach out to recruit influential
individuals, including persons who might be skeptical about or even opposed to
the character effort. Approach potential
nay-sayers honestly and directly: “We’d really appreciate your help in thinking
of practical ways to make the school a better place for everyone—and in
anticipating problems we might encounter.”
* Make sure all groups that make up the school community—administrators,
teachers, professional support staff (e.g., counselors, psychologists,
librarians, and coaches), other support staff (e.g., secretaries, custodians,
cafeteria and playground aides), students, and parents—are represented on one
or another of the committees.
5. DEVELOP A KNOWLEDGE BASE
Before
approaching the total staff regarding character education, the steering
committee should be knowledgeable about the subject. There are now dozens of helpful character
education web sites (students can help to research these; see Appendix A for a
short list). A good place to start is
the Character Education Partnership’s website (www.character.org), which, among many
resources, includes the foundational document, Eleven Principles of Effective Character Education. Our Center’s web site (www.cortland.edu/c4n5rs) offers an
overview of a 12-point comprehensive approach to character education. Books that provide an introduction to the
field are Character Education in
America’s Blue Ribbon Schools (elementary level) by
I
also strongly recommend visiting, if possible, other schools that have been
doing character education for a while (ideally for more than two years) to see
first-hand what a working program looks like.
A valuable part of such a visit is sitting down with the character
education committee(s) and asking questions such as: How did you get started? Cover
costs? How did you get faculty and other staff on board? Students and parents involved? What’s worked, and what hasn’t? How have you tried to assess impact?
Many schools have also found it important to have its leadership group get some formal character education training through a summer institute, conference, or other professional development opportunity. Our Center, for example, offers an annual Summer Institute and related conferences in character education (see our web site). Other regional and national conferences are posted on the Character Education Partnership’s web site.
6. INTRODUCE THE CONCEPT OF CHARACTER
EDUCATION TO THE ENTIRE STAFF
I strongly recommend inviting all school personnel to an introductory meeting on character education. Inviting everyone makes a statement: “We are all important members of the school community. We all have a part to play in making our school the best that it can be.”
This introductory session should address four basic questions about character education that staff will want answers to: (1) “What are the goals of character education?”; (2)“What will it require of me, in my work?”; (3) “What will this look like if we do it schoolwide?”; and (4) “What will be the benefits if we do this?”
Let’s look at how to approach each of these questions.
7. CONSIDER, “WHAT SORT OF PERSONS DO WE
WANT OUR STUDENTS TO BECOME?”
The goals of character education are three: persons of good character, schools of character, and, ultimately, a society of character.
That raises the important question, what is “good character”?
One way to engage a school staff in addressing that question is to ask, “What qualities do we want our graduates to possess? What moral and intellectual strengths will best equip our students to lead fulfilling, purposeful, and productive lives and to build a better world?” In small groups, staff can brainstorm and list these qualities on sheets of butcher paper and then post their lists around the room for all to view. (Nearly always, different groups list many of the same qualities.)
A next useful step is to compare the character qualities generated by the school staff with a pre-existing conceptual scheme defining good character, such as the “10 Essential Virtues” and their supporting virtues (see Chapter 1). These are summarized below:
1.
Wisdom
·
Moral and
intellectual discernment: Telling right from wrong, truth from falsehood, fact
from opinion, the eternal from the transitory
·
Understanding
human nature (e.g., the need to feel valued and significant)
·
Understanding how
life works (e.g., the wisdom of proverbs)
·
Good judgment: knowing
how to put the other virtues into practice
2.
Justice
·
Fairness
·
Respect
·
Responsibility
·
Honesty
·
Courtesy/civility
·
Tolerance
3.
Fortitude
·
Patience
·
Perseverance
·
Physical bravery
·
Moral courage
·
Capacity to
endure suffering
4.
Self-Mastery
·
Self-discipline
·
Ability to manage
one’s emotions
·
Ability to delay gratification
·
Ability to resist
temptation
·
Moderation
·
Chastity (sexual
self-control)
5.
Love
·
Empathy
·
Compassion
·
Kindness
·
Selfless generosity
·
Service
·
Loyalty
·
Patriotism (love
of what is noble in one’s country)
·
Forgiveness
6.
Positive
Attitude
·
Hope
·
Enthusiasm
·
Flexibility
·
Resilience
·
A Sense of Humor
7.
Hard Work
·
Initiative
·
Diligence
·
Goal-Setting
·
Resourcefulness
8.
Integrity
·
Faithfulness to a
correctly formed conscience
·
Standing up for
moral principle
·
Ethical
consistency
·
Telling the truth
to oneself
9.
Gratitude
·
The habit of
being thankful
·
Acknowledging
one’s debt to others
·
Not complaining
10. Humility
·
Striving for
virtue—to become the best person you can be
·
Awareness of your
strengths and areas for growth
·
Willingness to
admit mistakes and take responsibility for correcting them.
In comparing the 10 Essential Virtues with the lists they came up with, staff can be asked, what commonalities do we see? Do the 10 essential virtues and their sub-virtues provide a framework that best serves our school’s needs—or should this scheme be modified to fit our school’s culture and the developmental level of our students? What qualities not listed under the 10 Essential Virtues would we like to include in our working definition of good character?
Whatever the list of target virtues a staff settles on, what’s important is that it be comprehensive (touching on the important virtues in one way or another) and that the staff own it. (Separately, a survey should be distributed to parents and older students—middle school and up—so that their input on the target virtues can also be incorporated.)
Once character is
defined, a definition of character education follows naturally: Character education is the deliberate effort
to develop the virtues that enable us to lead fulfilling lives and build a
better world.
8. HELP STAFF CONSIDER, “WHAT WILL
CHARACTER EDUCATION MEAN FOR ME?”
To address this
question, I recommend a concrete,
non-threatening activity: “100 Ways to
Promote Character Education” (available on the web site of
Here are a dozen sample items (adapted slightly) from the list of “100 Ways to Promote Character Education”:
To wrap up this activity, I ask the whole group, “What conclusions can you draw from this exercise?” Three points I want to draw out are: (1) “We already do a lot of these things, even if we haven’t called them character education” (this realization is an important source of validation); (2) “There are a lot of other things we could be doing”; and (3) “There are many different ways to implement character education—we don’t all have to do the same thing.”
9. CONSIDER, “WHAT WILL CHARACTER EDUCATION
LOOK LIKE IF WE DO IT SCHOOLWIDE?”
Once staff begin to feel comfortable with what character education will mean for them in their individual work, they’re ready to consider what it might mean for the whole school.
I find that the quickest way to convey that is by schoolwide examples: reading and discussing character education success stories from around the country. Just as the “100 Ways” list provides concrete images of the many ways individual staff can build good character, schoolwide stories provide snapshots of the many ways whole schools have carried out a coordinated character education effort. And when a school staff can see how schools like them, facing similar problems, have improved student learning and behavior and staff morale through character education, it’s natural to think, “Why couldn’t that work for us?” (If, in addition, you can arrange for a live presentation by an enthusiastic principal or character education coordinator whose school has a reputation for having a strong character program, so much the better.)
Here’s
how I suggest using the case-study approach:
1. Put staff in
mixed triads (different grade levels, different subject areas, or different work
roles). Give each person a packet of
Character Education Success Stories, containing at least one story at the
elementary level, one at the middle school level, and one at the high school
level. Including all three levels is important
because it shows that character education can and should be done at all levels.
(Three sources of success stories are:
the Character Education Partnership’s annual National Schools of Character publications; Philip Vincent’s Promising Practices in Character Education,
Volumes 1 and 2; and back issues of our Center’s Fourth and Fifth Rs newsletter, available on our web site.)
2. Explain: “Take 6 minutes to read the first story silently. Then go back and star two or three things this school did that you think your school might benefit from doing. At the signal, share what you starred—and why—with the other members of your group.”
3. After giving triads 5 minutes to discuss what they selected as promising strategies, call on a sample of groups to briefly report which strategies they chose and why. Have someone keep a running posted list of all the strategies selected and the number of times each was mentioned.
4. Repeat this process with a second success story and again with a third, asking small groups to discuss, “What additional strategies do you see being used in this story—ideas you’d like to consider for possible use or adaptation in your school?”
5. After
considering several such case studies ask, “Based on the stories you’ve read,
what do you see as the benefits of a good character education program?”
(Benefits identified typically include: improved student learning, fewer
discipline problems, higher staff morale, students taking leadership roles, and
greater parent or community involvement.)
6. Close by
considering the composite list of strategies generated by the small group
reports: “Which strategies were most
often named?” If the school subsequently
decides to commit to becoming a school of character, the top five strategies can
be taken as the beginning of its character education plan. If a character education program is already
in place, these strategies can be used to enhance the existing effort.
To
illustrate how I format these case studies for ease of identifying effective
strategies, here is one I often use: the story of
The
A substitute teacher says of Kennedy:
"I've been in every school in the district, and I can tell you, when you
walk into Kennedy, there's a definite difference. It's a warm and caring place." Just a few years ago, "warm" and
"caring" were not words used to describe
1. It tied character education to school
improvement. In fall of 1995,
Kennedy teachers who were unhappy with disrespectful student behavior met with
the school's Site Council, which included parents, community members, support
staff, and students. Together they came
up with three school improvement goals, one of which dealt with school climate
and character.
2. It adopted a character education
curriculum: Second Step. Says Kay Mehas, then
principal of Kennedy: “Second Step is a schoolwide curriculum that teaches
skills such as how to communicate, problem-solve, and work together in a
community. It actually changes students’
behavior. They learn the importance of
responsibility and honesty, and it provides them tools for success in
life. A large section at the beginning
of each unit teaches empathy. The
curriculum calls for a lot of role-playing, students choosing how they might
react in certain situations.”
3. It trained the staff. Mehas and a Kennedy counselor attended a
"train the trainer" institute to learn how to train the other staff
to teach the Second Step curriculum.
Before the new school year began, Kennedy held a training day for all
staff as well as for many parents and district administrators. The faculty
decided that every Tuesday from
4. It
involved support staff in teaching the curriculum.
Kennedy invited every member of the staff—including secretaries,
custodians, cafeteria workers, and playground aides—to take part in teaching
the Second Step lessons. A secretary
would be paired with an 8th-grade math teacher, a custodian with an 8th-grade
science teacher, and so on. The
rationale was to show students that the entire school was committed to
character development.
5. It made a more effective use of the
curriculum in Year 2. Kennedy saw some improvement in student
behavior during the first year of using Second Step but Mehas said: “Students
still weren't coming to school with common expectations about classroom
behavior. We wanted to say to them right
at the start, ‘This is how we treat each other at
6. It provided multiple opportunities for
student leadership. These included:
Respect
Committee. This group meets every day and has the
mission of trying to try to ensure that all students feel comfortable and
respected at the school. For example, it
organizes assemblies at which students from different backgrounds share their
cultural heritages.
Leadership Club. This club meets weekly to
discuss ways to improve the school. One
year club members worked with a landscape architect to create a design and then
plant trees to enhance school grounds. The
Leadership Club is open to all three grades (6, 7, and 8).
Teens and Tots. A
service learning class, this program involves Kennedy students in working at
Relief Nursery, a child care and support facility for abused children and their
families.
Jump Start
Tutors are Kennedy
students who work with their at-risk peers, teaching them study skills and
helping with assignments in the different subject areas.
Student
Conveners are elected representatives from each class
who function as Kennedy’s student government.
7. Students developed a system for
recognizing positive behavior. Kennedy’s Student
Conveners created a schoolwide system—PRIDE (Personal Responsibility in Daily
Efforts)—for recognizing students on a daily basis for "doing the right
thing." Every six weeks, Kennedy
students who have all their assignments in on time, no more than one absence,
no more than one unexcused tardy, and no behavioral referrals, become a member
of PRIDE. For each PRIDE celebration,
qualifying students participate in special activities such as ice skating, snow
skiing, movies, and swimming. Every six
weeks students have a fresh start, so they have many chances to make PRIDE.
8. It took steps to create closer
teacher-student relationships. In 7th- and 8th-grades,
Kennedy implemented the practice of "looping," whereby students
remain with the same teachers for more than one year. This allows faculty to develop closer
relationships with both students and their parents.
9. It increased parent involvement. Since
initiating its character education program, Kennedy has had so many parent
volunteers that one parent now serves almost full-time as the volunteer
coordinator. Parent volunteers cover
the office and other essential staff functions while the regular staff are
teaching the Second Step lessons during the first three weeks of school. Parent volunteers also run the school library
and help with the many clubs.
10. It evaluated
impact. Kennedy looked at
academic and behavioral indicators to assess its character education
efforts. In 1997, only 59% of Kennedy's
students met
Schools that already have a character effort underway feel affirmed by finding from these case studies that they are already using a number of the practices employed by national winners. And they will typically find new ideas that can be used to keep their program fresh and growing.
10. ANALYZE THE MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL
CULTURE OF THE SCHOOL
With their imaginations stocked with examples of individual and schoolwide character education practices, staff are ready for the next step: taking an honest look at the strengths and areas for improvement in the school’s current moral and intellectual culture. This is an indispensable step in becoming a school of character. If this isn’t done, a school may end up ignoring the “elephant at the table”—the big character education problems right under its nose that, unaddressed, will undermine a character education effort. The most important character education “curriculum” consists of the moral and intellectual experiences that make up the day-to-day life of the school. These lived experiences—the ways adults relate to students, the ways students relate to adults, the ways students treat each other—more than anything else, shape character.
A systematic way to reflect on these experiences is to use the following four-part Analysis of the School’s Moral and Intellectual Culture:
Analysis of the School’s Moral and
Intellectual Culture
May be completed individually by staff prior to a staff meeting, with
results compiled and presented by the character education leadership group, or
discussed and completed together by staff in groups of 3-4 in a staff meeting.
Note that the focus of these questions is on practices that characterize the
school as a whole.
Sometimes a school
will go for years without addressing a problem that has corrosive effects on
character. I was working with an
independent K-9 school in the
Another example: Growing numbers of school districts are now permitting soda and junk food companies to install their vending machines in exchange for lucrative advances and a share of the vending profits. A dentist in our community recently wrote our local newspaper to comment: “Now that many of our teenagers get to bathe their teeth in sugar at school as well as at home, we have seen a large increase in the incidence of tooth decay in our teen population over the past few years.” In an Education Week essay titled “The Carbonated Curriculum,” teacher Joseph Bauer wrote: “Can anyone not comprehend the hypocrisy of teaching good nutrition and environmental awareness in the school curriculum while selling students nutritionally damaging products in throwaway plastic containers? Not to mention that it might be a bad idea to offer the most overweight and hyperactive generation in American history more empty calories and jolts of caffeine.”[4]
What does it
profit a school to gain a new gym floor from Pepsi or Coke if it compromises
its character and the health of students in the bargain? If a school wants to maximize its credibility
as a character educator, it needs to examine all its decisions from a character
perspective: What’s the example we’re
setting and the message we’re sending?
What decision in this matter is most consistent with our mission
statement?
If the moral and intellectual culture of the school is not a matter of rigorous and continuing reflection, then the character of a school—and all its efforts in character education—will be the poorer.
Reflection, of course, must be followed by action. The first step in devising an action plan to strengthen the school culture is to focus on just one or two concerns that the above analysis brings to light. A way to choose a focus is to distribute a survey listing expressed concerns, asking staff (and separately, students and parents) to indicate which ones they think the school should concentrate on in the coming year.
Improving the School Culture
Of the following school issues, which two do you think
we should focus on, as a school, in the coming year? (Give a 1 to your top choice, a 2 to your
second choice, or add other items if your top priorities aren’t listed here.)
___ Increasing students’ responsibility toward
their academic work
___ Increasing respect for teachers and other
school staff
___ Increasing the respect that adults show
students
___ Increasing peer kindness and reducing
bullying and other peer cruelty
___ Increasing academic honesty
___ Increasing respect and responsibility
regarding sexual attitudes and behavior
___ Increasing parental involvement
___ Improving language in the building
___ Improving the sportsmanship of students and
adults at athletic events
___ Improving staff morale
___ Addressing issues of unfairness (example:
___________________________)
___ Other: ________________________________________________________
___
Other:_________________________________________________________
For each of your top two issues: What is one thing
you think the school could do to bring about improvement in this area?
(1)
________________________________________________________________
(2)
________________________________________________________________
11. ASK THE STAFF TO DECIDE: “SHOULD WE
COMMIT
TO BECOMING A
Once
a school staff has discussed what character education looks like, how it can
benefit their school, and which aspects of the current school enhance character
and which most need improvement, it’s ready to make a decision: Should we commit to becoming a school of
character? If so, what action steps
should we take toward that goal?
If all of the preceding steps have been done well, there’s a strong likelihood that a solid majority of the staff will say yes, it makes a lot of sense to commit to becoming a school of character. By this point, staff should be thinking, “Character education is basically helping kids become good students and good people by being the best school we can be.”
However, if there’s still resistance to making a formal commitment to becoming a school of character, find out why. It may be that staff feel overwhelmed by current pressures and priorities. They may wonder, “When are we going to get the time to do this, and do it well?” They may be reluctant because past reform initiatives have faded when there wasn’t time for follow through. To encourage frankness about reasons for reluctance, I recommend asking staff to state their reasons in writing, anonymously. Then, at a subsequent meeting, distribute a list of reasons expressed and brainstorm possible ways to address these concerns.
However long it takes to get it, a staff commitment is essential. Our Center learned the hard way about the importance of this kind of shared decision-making on the part of the whole school staff. In our early days, school teams that attended our Summer Institute in Character Education would often leave ready to change the world—but then would frequently become discouraged when their colleagues back home didn’t enthusiastically embrace their proposed character education plan or even the concept of character education.
In any organization, when people feel as if change is being pushed at them, they resist it. But when they feel as if they have a voice in and measure of control over the change, that they are being asked to define their own priorities and participate in decision-making, they are much more likely to support a new initiative.
12. PLAN A QUALITY CHARACTER EDUCATION PROGRAM
The next step is to plan the substance of the character education program. The challenge here is to design a program that has most, if not all, of the components that constitute quality character education. These are the components that can be seen again and again in character education success stories at different levels. The more of these components a program has, and the more effectively each is implemented, the greater the chance of positive impact on the character of the school and the character of kids.
20 Common Components of Quality Character Education
13. CHOOSE AN ORGANIZING STRATEGY
FOR PROMOTING THE VIRTUES
One aspect of a character education initiative that should definitely be discussed and decided by staff is how—or whether—the school will focus on teaching certain virtues at certain times. How best to do this is a matter of thoughtful debate in the field. Here are the choices (many of which can be combined):
11 Organizing Strategies
The steering committee can present a list of these different possibilities to the staff, briefly describe what it sees as their pros and cons, invite staff to discuss in small groups the options and possible combinations, and then facilitate a staff decision on an organizing strategy to begin the program with. My own view is that any of these approaches, especially a thoughtful combination of compatible strategies, can succeed in the hands of a staff that is committed to it. I also strongly recommend that a school staff regularly revisit this decision—at least every two years—to consider whether a modification or different approach might increase the effectiveness of the school’s character-building efforts.
14. MAKE ASSESSMENT PART OF YOUR PLAN
There are at least three very important reasons to assess a character education initiative: (1) What gets measured, matters; staff motivation and accountability for implementing a character education effort will be much greater if there is a plan to assess results; (2) assessment will tell you to what extent your character education program is actually making a difference; and (3) assessment data can then be used to guide decision making about how to increase program effectiveness.
The vital work of assessment is more likely to get done if the school sets up a committee that has this responsibility. The assessment effort can start modestly and expand over time. It should try to answer most of the following six questions—questions that a school will want to answer if it wishes to know what impact its character development efforts are having.
Answering the next four questions will require baseline data, gathered as
early as possible in the life of a program (though better late than never) to
provide a point of comparison for assessing change following program
implementation.
Assessment often seems intimidating at first, but it’s not as complicated as it sounds. For starters, you’d certainly want to look at student conduct and academic achievement indicators such as discipline referrals and test scores. These are affected by variables (e.g., rising standards, changing school demographics, staff turnover) other than the character program, but if you found that two years after implementing character education neither discipline referrals nor test scores had improved at all, you’d want to take a look at what you might do differently in your program.
Suppose you’d like to get a measure of the overall character of the school. There are a number of school climate measures available, including The School as a Caring Community Profile (SCCP) that our Center developed for elementary school use (available on our website) and the Character Education Survey) designed by Meg Korpi for grades 7 to 12. (See Appendix B for more information on these and other character education assessment instruments.) Both of these instruments measure staff and student perceptions of the school environment. For example, the SCCP instructs the respondent: “On a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 means ‘almost never’ and 5 means ‘almost always,’ circle the number that describes how often you observe the following behaviors in your school.” Sample items: “Students treat classmates with respect”; “Students behave respectfully toward all school staff”; and “In their interactions with students, teachers act in ways that demonstrate the character qualities the school is trying to teach.”
On the last of those three items, the teachers in one elementary school we worked with gave themselves an average rating of 4.5, whereas on the same item, students (grades 4 through 6) who completed the survey gave the teachers a significantly lower rating of 3.1. The faculty were brought up short by the discrepancy between their self-perception and students’ perception and, to their credit, made narrowing that gap a goal for the coming year.
Suppose you were concerned about bus behavior. You could assess the existing moral environment on the school busses by looking at several kinds of data: (1) the frequency of bus drivers’ referrals for problem behavior; (2) student responses on a brief questionnaire (e.g., “How safe do you feel on the bus—from ‘1—not at all safe’ to ‘5—very safe’; “Did anything bad happen to you on the bus in the past year? If so, what happened, and how many times did it happen?”); (3) parents’ responses on a similar questionnaire (e.g., “How safe does your child feel on the bus?”); and (4) what a small, randomly selected sample of students and parents at various grade levels say to the same kinds of questions asked in 10-minute interviews conducted face-to-face or by phone (which older students can help to do and which are worth the trouble because interviews yield examples and insights that written surveys don’t). Looking at these data before and after a school bus character education intervention (see Chapter 7 for one example) will tell you what progress you’ve made and where there’s still room for improvement.
Suppose you were
concerned about bad language, which a few years ago rose to the number 1
behavior problem that
15. BUILD A STRONG ADULT COMMUNITY
In the long run, the quality of school’s character education effort, like the quality of any other school initiative, will be a function of the quality of the human community that exists among the staff. To what extent do they know, respect, and support each other? I’ve gone into schools where the first thing some staff have told me is, “There are cliques on this faculty.” That doesn’t bode well for a character education program.
To build community, one elementary school features a different staff person at the beginning of each staff meeting. If the featured person is a teacher, his or her grade-level colleagues prepare stories and little-known facts about the person. Other staff members can then add what they know and appreciate about that individual. This sets a positive tone for the rest of the meeting.[6]
A
new principal took over a
Other
schools have made every faculty meeting a time for meaningful sharing and
professional growth. Says Pat
Floyd-Echols, principal of Martin Luther King, Jr. School in inner-city
Another good staff
development activity is a Common Book Project.
Staff commit to reading—and discussing as part of a faculty meeting—a
book that pertains to character development.
I recommend starting with ones that are fun to read and that people can
apply in their personal and family life as well as in their professional work.
Much educational change has a short shelf life: here today, gone tomorrow. That’s why veteran teachers are often cynical, thinking, “This, too, shall pass.” The business of becoming a school of character, however, must not become a passing fad because developing character is at the heart of effective schooling and what it means to be human. Educational reforms that endure—those with the power to transform school culture—are those that stay in the forefront of staff and student consciousness. To have that kind of staying power, developing character must be thought about and talked about day in and day out by all who make up the community of the school. In large measure, to become a school of character is to keep the conversation going.
[1] For the full document, Eleven Principles of Effective Character Education, see the Character Education Partnership’s web site: www.character.org
[2] This
account taken from
[3] Thomas
Lickona and Matthew Davidson, Character
quotes (
[4] Joseph
Bauer, “The Carbonated Curriculum,” Education
Week (
[5] For
further information, contact Karen Newman, Dean of Studies,
[6]