FOR CHARACTER
creating schools and communities for character!
May, June, 2004
An electronic newsletter to help
you make sure CHARACTER COUNTS!sm
Gary Smit
IN THIS ISSUE …
TAKE A MINUTE FOR CHARACTER
DEVELOPMENTAL ASSETS: A FOUNDATION FOR SCHOOL SUCCESS
SUPPORT FROM THE PRINCIPAL: A NECESSITY FOR SUCCESS
CHARACTER
QUOTATIONS – QUESTION ACTIVITY
BUILDING SCHOOL COMMUNITIES WITH CHARACTER
COMMENTARY BY MICHAEL JOSEPHSON
TAKE A MINUTE FOR CHARACTER – Gary Smit
At the end of March, I was invited to Arlington, Virginia to attend the U.S. Department of Education “Character Education and Civic Engagement Listening Session.” I joined approximately 50 individuals from across the country that came to provide feedback to the U.S Department of Education. We discussed key issues facing character education and civic engagement in our local school districts and communities.
As part of the session, I was exposed to the Character Education and Civic Engagement Technical Assistance Center (CETAC) and their website, CETAC Online! This website is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education's and provides State program administrators, local educators, and the public with information on character education and civic engagement. This center has been created to provide support and information for and about schools involved in character education and civic engagement across the country.
CETAC's objective is to provide technical assistance on implementing effective character education and civic engagement to U.S. Department of Education--Partnerships in Character Education Program grantees and to serve as a resource for grantees, educators, parents, and the community at large. CETAC Online offers a variety of online resources to help educators learn more about selecting, implementing, and evaluating character education and civic engagement efforts.
If you would like more information about CETAC, you can go their website at www.cetac.org
Gary Smit
INFORMATION YOU CAN USE
·
TEACHER’S LESSONS FOCUS ON FUN, GRAMMAR & MANNERS
After 27 years of teaching at the rural elementary and middle school just north of Lawrenceburg, Stan Lopp has gained a reputation as a strict disciplinarian who spends the first few days of each semester laying down the rules: Show respect. Be prepared. Pay attention. Be on time to class. Keep the room clean. "You have to be consistent. You've got to have that even tone every day," he said. "These are junior high kids -- one day they come in on cloud nine and another they are in a stupor." The formula apparently is working because he rarely has to punish a student for breaking the rules. "He makes sure every kid understands everything he wants," said Jo Ogg, a guidance counselor who runs an after-school program with Lopp. "It's amazing how he can be so firm, demand so much from them, and yet they love him to death." Year after year, Claudette Riley reports, Lopp’s students gain more knowledge than state or district averages.
· THE EDUCATOR’S REFERENCE DESK - AskERIC, a popular resource for educators, has launched a new Web site with added services named "The Educator’s Reference Desk." This site allows you to access more than 2,000 lesson plans, 3,000 links to online education information, and 200 archived questions and responses. In addition, it provides a search function for over one million bibliographic records on educational research, theory, and practice. You can access the website at http://www.eduref.org/ Type in the search box “character” and you will be directed to a number of excellent resources for teachers to use in planning lessons on character education.
·
EMOTIONS IMPACT STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT
In the article "Promoting Academic Achievement through Social and
Emotional Learning," the authors illustrate that there is a strong
relationship between social and emotional learning and academic success. They
argue that academics should integrate social and emotional learning core
competencies such as: Self Awareness; Social Awareness; Self Management;
Relationship Skills and Responsible Decision Making. Teachers are enhancing and
advancing the academic mission of the school, and helping students address
barriers that may be limiting their academic progress. http://www.pilambda.org/horizons/v81-4/Ragozzino.pdf
·
TEACHERS FIGHT AGAINST INTERNET PLAGIARISM
Since the Internet became readily accessible to students in the 1990s, writes
Kimberly Chase, it has become in some ways the educator's worst enemy. In
secondary schools and universities alike, students are taking advantage of the
fact that ready-made papers are only a few clicks away. An entire industry has
sprung up to provide free homework or -- at a price -- papers purported to be custom-made.
But now teachers are fighting back. Across the country, educators have become
savvier about using a combination of in-class writing samples, Internet search
engines, and antiplagiarism technology to beat the cheating scourge.
http://www.christiansciencemonitor.com/2004/0302/p12s01-legn.html
STOP BULLYING NOW
Five years ago this April the Columbine
massacre galvanized the nation and focused attention on a variety of school
problems. One that has gained increasing visibility is bullying. Research has
shown it to be directly connected to incidents of school violence.
Efforts to make anti-bullying programs
and approaches an inherent part of school policy has been adopted in many
states. According to "Stateline.org,"
[http://www.stateline.org/stateline/] a non-partisan, non-profit online news
publication that reports each weekday on state government, 17 states have
anti-bullying laws on the books. Whether such statutes are effective is still
in question. Eleven states recently considered anti-bullying proposals but
failed to pass them.
Meanwhile, the federal government has
launched an anti-bullying initiative aimed directly at school-age children and
youth. The online campaign, titled "Stop Bullying Now!," contains a
variety of kid-friendly activities to counteract bullying. Also included is a
wealth of information and resources on bullying for adults. The campaign is
sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Health
Resources and Services Administration, and the Maternal and Child Health
Bureau.
The website contains information for both adults and youth.
http://www.stopbullyingnow.org
DEVELOPMENTAL ASSETS:
A FOUNDATION FOR SCHOOL SUCCESS
Developmental assets—a broad range of individual and environmental
factors that strengthen young people’s development—are central to the work of
the Minnesota-based Search Institute. The Institute’s October newsletter, Insights
& Evidence, summarizes their latest research on how developmental
assets affect student achievement.
Search compared students’ developmental
assets with their grade point averages and standardized test scores. A higher
level of assets was found to contribute to GPA both concurrently and over time.
Students whose assets decreased over a three-year period showed drops in GPA,
while students whose assets increased or remained stable showed increases in
GPA.
Even more encouraging, schools that
worked to build assets showed increases in test scores, in contrast to schools
that did not work to increase assets. The findings also suggest that an
emphasis on overall development may have “as much or more positive impact on
academic outcomes in the long run as more obvious and traditional strategies
for boosting achievement, such as emphasizing task mastery, requiring higher
teacher certification standards, and using high-stakes testing to track
achievement.” The article also includes the Search Institute’s framework of the
40 most important assets for healthy development.
You can read the article at http://www.search-institute.org/research/Insights/
SUPPORT FROM THE PRINCIPAL: A NECESSITY
FOR SUCCESS
The crucial role of the principal to the success of school-based social and emotional learning
and prevention efforts is readily apparent to
teachers and other school staff responsible for implementing new programs and practices. A study by Chi-Ming Kam, Mark
Greenberg, and Carla T. Walls published in the March 2003 issue of Prevention Science investigated
the impact of principal support on the success
of a school-based prevention program used with elementary school
students in a high-risk urban community. The results
were striking. The program succeeded in reducing problem behaviors and
aggression and increasing social-emotional competence in students—but only when principal support was high and if there was a
high degree of program implementation in the classroom. In conditions of
high levels of classroom implementation, the
impact on children’s outcomes was doubled when principal support was
also strong.
According to the study, in schools with “high principal support” the principal:
- Saw the program as central to the school’s mission;
- Supported staff effectively;
- Spoke positively about the program;
- Displayed program materials in the office;
- Collaborated with the technical assistance team; and
- Helped the program coordinator become part of the school culture.
To read the complete article, go to: http://www.casel.org/downloads/greenbergpathsimp.pdf
“LEADERSHIP THAT GETS RESULTS”— A
WORTHWHILE ARTICLE FOR SCHOOL LEADERS
One of the first steps to becoming a more effective leader
is recognizing which leadership styles you use and the impact they have on
individuals and overall school culture. This article by CASEL co-founder and
internationally known expert on emotional intelligence Dan Goleman offers a
good introduction to leading with social and emotional intelligence. Goleman
discusses six common leadership styles, when to employ them, their benefits and
shortcomings, and the social and emotional skills they require.
The six
common leadership styles are:
- Coercive: Demands immediate compliance
- Authoritative: Mobilizes
people toward a vision
- Affiliative: Creates harmony
and builds emotional bonds
- Democratic: Forges consensus
through participation
- Pacesetting: Sets high
standards for performance
- Coaching: Develops people
for the future
To read the full article, go to http://www.reuna.cl/central_apunte/docs/Goleman_acrobat.pdf
CHARACTER QUOTATIONS – QUESTION ACTIVITY
On the
forcharacter website, there is a section of weekly quotes that can be used
throughout the school year. Using quotes as an activity for student journaling
or small group discussion, is an excellent tool for integrating character
education into the classroom. Here are
a few examples of questions that one could use with character quotations:
“Our character is what we do when we think no one is
looking.” - H. Jackson Browne
Why do you thin people act differently in public then when
they are alone?
“Of all the properties which belong to honorable men, not
one is so highly prized as that of character.”
- Henry Clay
Do you consider your character to be your most prized
possession? Why or why not?
“The true test of character is not how much we know how to
do. But how we behave when we don’t know what to do.” – John Holt
What are situations that test our character?
“The final forming of a person’s character lies in their
own hands.” – Anne Frank
Why is your character ultimately your own responsibility?
Explain.
“That which does not kills us will only make us stronger.”
How can we use difficult situations to strengthen our
character?
BUILDING SCHOOL COMMUNITIES WITH CHARACTER
Whether you’re a teacher, prevention coordinator, mental
health professional, or administrator, another valuable resource is Building
School Communities with Character, by Bernard Novick, Jeffrey Kress, and
Maurice Elias. The book presents a nine-step problem-solving approach to help
educators develop an SEL program and create a nurturing school climate. The
chapter titled “Readiness: Assess Your School’s Potential for Change” is
available on the ASCD web site at http://www.ascd.org/cms/objectlib/ascdframeset/index.cfm?publication=http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/101240/.
It focuses on the socio-emotional culture of the school as an organization and
includes tools for evaluating the school’s organizational culture.
Interested in a first-hand experience of how your own
emotions can help pinpoint strengths and weaknesses in what’s happening in your
school? Try this exercise from the chapter on “Recognizing Feelings” (the first
step in the nine-step problem solving model):
A Feelings Walking Tour
Take a walk through your school building. Look in on
classes, lunch and recess times, meetings, extracurricular activities,
after-school and evening events—the gamut of what occurs on regular school
days. Be aware of your feelings at different destinations on your tour. Where
do you experience positive emotions such as pride, joy, and excitement? Where
do you experience negative emotions such as anxiety, frustration, and anger? Where
do you experience both types of emotions? What is triggering these emotions at
these times and places?
COMMENTARY BY MICHAEL JOSEPHSON
What Do You Want to See More of and Less of?
Stephen Covey says: Start with the end in mind. So when a
company wants to launch an ethics initiative, the Josephson Institute uses a
simple exercise: "Look at your organization today -- its managers, line
employees and customers -- and list behaviors and attitudes you'd like to see
more of and less of." We use the same basic exercise when a school is
starting a character development program. Once the desired outcomes are
identified, it's not that difficult to devise a strategic plan to achieve them.
The same approach would work in efforts at self-improvement. But instead of
asking yourself what you want to see more of and less of in your own behavior,
ask the people at home and at work to tell you what they want.
Interestingly, whether we're talking about a company, a school or an
individual, the lists are likely to be similar: more respect and kindness, less
criticism and complaining, more scrupulous honesty, less evasion and
manipulation, more accountability, less excuse-making.
Here's another one: If your family and coworkers were told they could choose
only five words to describe you, what would you like them to say? What do you
think they would say? And to paraphrase Jack Nicholson, "Could you handle
the truth?"
It takes character to engage in open-minded self-reflection and to acknowledge
and address our flaws, but it takes even stronger character to commit to
getting better and staying the course. It's like the old proverb: "If you
want to know how to live your life, think about what you want people to say
about you after you die, and live backwards."
This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.