Pages

Jul 27, 2009

Eleven Principles of Effective Character Education

Principle 1

Promotes core ethical values and supportive performance values as the foundation of good character.

Character education holds that widely shared, pivotally important, core ethical values - such as caring, honesty, fairness, responsibility, and respect for self and others - along with supportive performance values - such as diligence, a strong work ethic, and perseverance - form the basis of good character. A school committed to character development stands for these values (sometimes referred to as "virtues" or "character traits"), defines them in terms of behaviors that can be observed in the life of the school, models these values, studies and discusses them, uses them as the basis of human relations in the school, celebrates their manifestations in the school and community, and holds all school members accountable to standards of conduct consistent with the core values.

In a school committed to developing character, these core values are treated as a matter of obligation, as having a claim on the conscience of the individual and community. Character education asserts that the validity of these values, and our responsibility to uphold them, derive from the fact that such values affirm our human dignity, promote the development and welfare of the individual person, serve the common good, meet the classical tests of reversibility (i.e., Would you want to be treated this way?) and universality (i.e., Would you want all persons to act this way in a similar situation?), and inform our rights and responsibilities in a democratic society. The school makes clear that these basic human values transcend religious and cultural differences and express our common humanity.The Character Education Partnership (CEP) believes that character education's primary focus is on developing the core ethical values needed to be a good human being. But character education also seeks to develop complementary performance character qualities that enable students to perform at their highest potential in the classroom, the workplace, or any other area of endeavor. These two parts of character work together in mutually supportive ways.

Principle 2

Defines "character" comprehensively to include thinking, feeling, and behavior.

Good character involves understanding, caring about, and acting upon core ethical values. A holistic approach to character development therefore seeks to develop the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral aspects of moral life. Students grow to understand core values by studying and discussing them, observing behavioral models, and resolving problems involving the values. Students learn to care about core values by developing empathy skills, forming caring relationships, helping to create community, hearing illustrative and inspirational stories, and reflecting on life experiences. And they learn to act upon core values by developing prosocial behaviors (e.g., communicating feelings, active listening, helping skills) and by repeatedly practicing these behaviors, especially in the context of relationships (e.g., through cross-age tutoring, mediating conflicts, school and community services). As children grow in character, they develop an increasingly refined understanding of the core values, a deeper commitment to living according to those values, and a stronger capacity and tendency to behave in accordance with them.

Principle 3

Uses a comprehensive, intentional, and proactive approach to character development.

Schools committed to character development look at themselves through a moral lens to assess how virtually everything that goes on in school affects the character of students. A comprehensive approach uses all aspects of schooling as opportunities for character development. This includes what is sometimes called the hidden curriculum (e.g., school ceremonies and procedures; the teachers' example; students' relationships with teachers, other school staff, and each other; the instructional process; how student diversity is addressed; the assessment of learning; the management of the school environment; the discipline policy); the academic curriculum (i.e., core subjects, including the health curriculum); and extracurricular programs (i.e., sports teams, clubs, service projects, after-school care). "Stand alone" character education programs can be useful first steps or helpful elements of an ongoing effort but are not an adequate substitute for a holistic approach that integrates character development into every aspect of school life. Finally, rather than simply waiting for opportunities to arise, with an intentional and proactive approach, the school staff takes deliberate steps for developing character, drawing wherever possible on practices shown by research to be effective.


Principle 4

Creates a caring school community.

A school committed to character strives to become a microcosm of a civil, caring, and just society. It does this by creating a community that helps all its members form caring attachments to one another. This involves developing caring relationships among students (within and across grade levels), among staff, between students and staff, and between staff and families.

These caring relationships foster both the desire to learn and the desire to be a good person. All children and adolescents have needs for safety, belonging, and the experience of contributing, and they are more likely to internalize the values and expectations of groups that meet these needs.

Likewise, if staff members and parents experience mutual respect, fairness, and cooperation in their relationships with each other, they are more likely to develop the capacity to promote those values in students. In a caring school community, the daily life of classrooms and all other parts of the school environment (e.g., the corridors, cafeteria, playground, school bus, front office, and teachers' lounge) are imbued with a climate of concern and respect for others.


Principle 5

Provides students with opportunities for moral action.

In the ethical as in the intellectual domain, students are constructive learners; they learn best by doing. To develop good character, they need many and varied opportunities to apply values such as compassion, responsibility, and fairness in everyday interactions and discussions as well as through community service.

By grappling with real-life challenges (e.g., how to divide the labor in a cooperative learning group, how to reach consensus in a class meeting, how to reduce fights on the playground, how to carry out a service learning project) and reflecting on these experiences, students develop practical understanding of the requirements of cooperating with others and giving of oneself.

Through repeated moral experiences, students develop and practice the skills and behavioral habits that make up the action side of character.


Principle 6

Includes a meaningful and challenging academic curriculum that respects all learners, develops their character, and helps them to succeed.

When students succeed at the work of school and feel a sense of competence and autonomy, they are more likely to feel valued and cared about as persons.

Because students come to school with diverse skills, interests and needs, an academic program that helps all students succeed will be one in which the content and pedagogy are sophisticated enough to engage all learners.

This means providing a curriculum that is inherently interesting and meaningful to students. A meaningful curriculum includes active teaching and learning methods such as cooperative learning, problem-solving approaches, and experience-based projects.

These approaches increase student autonomy by appealing to students interests, providing them with opportunities to think creatively and test their ideas, and fostering a sense of "voice and choice" having a say in decisions and plans that affect them.

In addition, effective character educators look for the natural intersections between the academic content they wish to teach and the character qualities they wish to develop. These "character connections" can take many forms, such as addressing current ethical issues in science, debating historical practices and decisions, and discussing character traits and ethical dilemmas in literature.

When teachers bring to the fore the character dimension of the curriculum, they enhance the relevance of subject matter to students' natural interests and questions, and in the process, increase student engagement and achievement.

Principle 7

Strives to foster students' self motivation.


Character is often defined as "doing the right thing when no one is looking." The best underlying ethical reason for following rules, for example, is respect for the rights and needs of others, not fear of punishment or desire for a reward. Similarly, we want students to be kind to others because of an inner belief that kindness is good and a desire to be a kind person.

Growing in self-motivation is a developmental process that schools of character are careful not to undermine by excessive emphasis on extrinsic incentives. When such schools give appropriate social recognition for students' prosocial actions (e.g., "Thank you for holding the door; that was a thoughtful thing to do.") or celebrate character through special awards (e.g., for outstanding school or community service), they keep the focus on character.

Schools of character work with students to develop their understanding of rules, their awareness of how their behavior affects others, and the character strengths such as self-control, perspective taking, and conflict resolution skills needed to act responsibly in the future.

Rather than settle for mere compliance, these schools seek to help students benefit from their mistakes by providing meaningful opportunities for reflection, problem solving, and restitution.



Principle 8

Engages the school staff as a learning and moral community that shares responsibility for character education and attempts to adhere to the same core values that guide the education of students.

All school staff - teachers, administrators, counselors, school psychologists, coaches, secretaries, cafeteria workers, playground aides, and bus drivers - need to be involved in learning about, discussing, and taking ownership of the character education effort. First and foremost, staff members assume this responsibility by modeling the core values in their own behavior and taking advantage of other opportunities to influence the students with whom they interact.

Second, the same values and norms that govern the life of students serve to govern the collective life of adult members in the school community. Like students, adults grow in character by working collaboratively with each other and participating in decision-making that improves classrooms and school. They also benefit from extended staff development and opportunities to observe colleagues and then apply character development strategies in their own work with students.

Third, a school that devotes time to staff reflection on moral matters helps to ensure that it operates with integrity. Through faculty meetings and smaller support groups, a reflective staff regularly asks questions such as:
What character building experiences is the school already providing for its students?
What negative moral experiences (e.g., peer cruelty, student cheating, adult disrespect of students, littering of the grounds) is the school currently failing to address?
And what important moral experiences (e.g., cooperative learning, school and community service, opportunities to learn about and interact with people from different racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds) is the school now omitting?
What school practices are at odds with its professed core values and desire to develop a caring school community?
Reflection of this nature is an indispensable condition for developing the moral life of a school.

Principle 9
Fosters shared moral leadership and long range support of the character education initiative.


Schools that are engaged in effective character education have leaders (e.g., the principal, a lead teacher or counselor, a district administrator, or preferably a small group of such individuals) who champion the effort.

At least initially, many schools and districts establish a character education committee often composed of staff, students, parents, and possibly community members that take responsibility for planning, implementation, and support.

Over time, the regular governing bodies of the school or district may take on the functions of this committee. The leadership also takes steps to provide for the long-range support (e.g., adequate staff development, time to plan) of the character education initiative, including, ideally, support at the district and state levels.

In addition, within the school students assume developmentally appropriate roles in leading the character education effort through class meetings, student government, peer mediation, cross-age tutoring, service clubs, task forces, and student-led initiatives.

Principle 10

Engages families and community members as partners in the character-building effort.

Schools that reach out to families and include them in character-building efforts greatly enhance their chances for success with students. They take pains at every stage to communicate with families via newsletters, e-mails, family nights, and parent conferences about goals and activities regarding character education. To build greater trust between home and school, parents are represented on the character education committee. These schools also make a special effort to reach out to subgroups of parents who may not feel part of the school community. Finally, schools and families enhance the effectiveness of their partnership by recruiting the help of the wider community (i.e., businesses, youth organizations, religious institutions, the government, and the media) in promoting character development.
Principle 11

Evaluates the character of the school, the school staff's functioning as character educators, and the extent to which students manifest good character.

Effective character education must include an effort to assess progress. Three broad kinds of outcomes merit attention:

(a) The character of the school: To what extent is the school becoming a more caring community? This can be assessed, for example, with surveys that ask students to indicate the extent to which they agree with statements such as, "Students in this school (classroom) respect and care about each other," and "This school (classroom) is like a family."

(b) The school staff's growth as character educators: To what extent have adult staff--teaching faculty, administrators, and support personnel--developed understandings of what they can do to foster character development? Personal commitment to doing so? Skills to carry it out? Consistent habits of acting upon their developing capacities as character educators?

(c) Student character: To what extent do students manifest understanding of, commitment to, and action upon the core ethical values? Schools can, for example, gather data on various character-related behaviors: Has student attendance gone up? Fights and suspensions gone down? Vandalism declined? Drug incidents diminished? Schools can also assess the three domains of character (knowing, feeling, and behaving) through anonymous questionnaires that measure student moral judgment (for example, "Is it wrong to cheat on a test?"), moral commitment ("Would you cheat if you were sure you wouldn't get caught?") and self-reported moral behavior ("How many times have you cheated on a test or major assignment in the past year?"). Such questionnaires can be administered at the beginning of a school's character initiative to get a baseline and again at later points to assess progress.


Reference:

http://www.character.org/elevenprinciples

Service Learning: The Power to Inspire

By Maria Sudeck and Theodore Hartman

July 2009

Here's what happens when students learn they can make a difference.

To read this "Educational Leadership" article, click on this link:

http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership/summer09/vol66/num10/Service_Learning@_The_Power_to_Inspire.aspx

Jul 22, 2009

Supporting Educational Leaders

A School for Peace and Justice
Educational Leadership

Elliott Seif


A focus on four dimensions of social responsibility transforms a Philadelphia high school and fosters skills and attitudes that promote social justice.
A visitor walking the halls of Parkway High School for Peace and Social Justice would encounter the usual crowd of students chatting, joking, and working their way to their next class. Classes might appear similar to those in any school to the casual observer who dropped into this public high school in Philadelphia. But this school of approximately 300 students, 57 percent of whom qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, differs in profound ways from other high schools.
In 2005, at the urging of Public Citizens for Children and Youth (a children's advocacy organization) and after much discussion and debate, the school adopted the theme of peace and social justice. The leadership of the Philadelphia school district was pushing the development of small, themed high schools, and Parkway's leaders chose to focus on fostering peaceful, responsible learners. They committed themselves to building a program that would help students learn "how to decrease violence, advance justice, work with people of different backgrounds, and help create a culture of peace," as the school's vision statement pledges.
Since Parkway embraced this theme, test scores have risen,
1 suspensions have decreased, attendance has increased, and the graduation rate has hit 100 percent, with almost all students going on to college. Parent participation is stronger. Teachers are more committed to the school's programs, and students are showing an enthusiasm for learning not always seen in high schools. Adopting this focus has made a difference in students' self-discipline, interpersonal relationships, and willingness to take responsibility for their own learning.

Four Dimensions of Transformation
Teachers and administrators didn't transform the school just by crafting a vision statement. As the school has developed, faculty members have created new courses, projects, and learning activities designed to foster students' social responsibility. These new experiences teach students to care about one another, to critically examine violence and social justice issues, and to foster skills and adopt actions that will help resolve social problems.
This effort changed Parkway along four dimensions that I believe are essential for fostering social responsibility within any school: It enhanced the culture of the school; gave students opportunities to reflect on their own values, beliefs, and behaviors; offered enriched academic learning experiences; and encouraged students to serve others. Let's look at how Parkway has developed each dimension.
Students at Parkway High School for Peace and Social Justice paint a mural illustrating peace and justice themes on a wall of their school.











Remaking School Culture
A major goal at Parkway is to build a schoolwide culture and value structure that supports peacemaking. Teachers have had numerous discussions on how to promote peace and social justice in each classroom and the school as a whole. Representative faculty members gathered with outside experts in daylong strategic planning sessions to develop a vision for the school. The principal and the entire faculty talked over the implications of adopting a peace and justice theme, created a mission statement, and established a set of four rules (called "Peace Actions") that guide both student and faculty behavior.
Be on time, prepared, and ready to learn.
Practice academic honesty.
Respect personal space, property, and opinions.
Promote a positive educational environment through respectful language and actions.
These decisions led to the adoption of programs that promote the desired atmosphere of social responsibility. For example, every 9th grade student at Parkway takes part in an extensive peer mediation training led by a consultant from
Educators for Social Responsibility, a group that helps teachers create safe, caring, respectful, and productive learning environments.
One teacher proudly recounted an incident that showed the effect of this training. When two students began to fight in the hallway, other students—instead of egging them on—separated the two and calmed them down. Students encouraged the fighters to attend a session conducted by a student trained in peer mediation that would focus on their conflict. The boys did so, and they resolved the contentious issue peacefully.

Learning to Reflect and Lead
The purpose of self-reflection at Parkway is to enable students to build personal responsibility through exploring their own values and beliefs. By looking more deeply into their values, ideas, and experiences, students learn to take greater responsibility for others, to explore ways to communicate well, and to solve interpersonal problems. Leadership skills are also a focus; students practice setting personal goals and carrying them through.
All 9th and 10th grade students take a core sequence of social leadership courses, also developed with Educators for Social Responsibility. The 9th grade course focuses on the question, What does it mean to lead for social responsibility? Participants build communication and conflict-resolution skills and develop tolerance for individual differences.
Students explore the definition of leadership. They determine whether they are currently leaders or followers, and why. Students discuss articles on good communication, take part in exercises that help them think about and practice effective ways to communicate, and learn conflict-resolution techniques. Another set of activities requires students to define social justice and examine whether it's possible to have a socially just world.
This course helps students hone such crucial skills as listening actively, managing anger, learning how to disagree with others, and recognizing the difference between dialogue and debate. In a series of lessons, students work in pairs to write a skit about a personal conflict and act it out in front of the class. The teacher assigns two other students to take the role of mediator for each skit, and all four students role-play a mediation session. Afterwards, the whole class reflects on and analyzes the mediation process.
In another set of lessons, students reflect on how movies, advertisements, music, and television perpetuate negative stereotypes. They watch or listen to selections that exemplify stereotypes and analyze how these media are designed to influence viewers' perceptions and ideas.
The 10th grade course builds on the first year's work using a program called
Journey of a Champion. This program is designed to help students take greater responsibility for their own actions and become proactive in their school and community. Students reflect on who is a champion (or hero), the challenges champions face, and how individuals can become more heroic. They explore their own lives and values, analyze their communities for negative realities, and think about their roles in the community (as bystanders or as actors in support of change). The teacher also uses readings and discussions about historical events such as the Holocaust and the internment of Japanese Americans in the U.S. during World War II to examine how individuals and groups reacted to these events. Students explore champions in history and model ways to emulate them through behavior change and service to others.
Each class also takes on one or more projects for the year, such as learning about and working with elderly people, helping homeless people, or exploring ways to aid people with mental illness. Journal writing and self-reflection are integral parts of these lessons and projects.
Parkway students work with older adults from the Oxford Presbyterian Elderdiner club on physical fitness and nutrition projects.














This program makes for dynamic lessons. For example, students use several lessons to create their own classroom code of behavior. Students continually refer to this code in their effort to be upstanding class members. In one class, this seemingly simple task led to passionate debate about what rules should be on the list. Some students argued that a rule might belong in the code of conduct, but they weren't sure they could always follow it. Eventually the class agreed to the following guidelines:
Listen to the teacher and to classmates.
Talk one at a time.
No throwing things in class.
Raise your hand.
Respect everyone's opinion (nobody's is "wrong").
Speak wisely.
No cursing.
Learn how to take constructive criticism.
No eating or drinking in class.
Stop jumping to conclusions.
No laughing at or teasing others.
No smart comments toward people.
Integrating Social Responsibility Themes into Academics
Academic learning can foster social responsibility by giving students a basic understanding of local, national, and worldwide social justice issues and of the underlying conflicts that can lead to violence.
A newly developed required course at Parkway helps all 9th grade students become aware of worldwide problems and develop ways to face them creatively. There is no textbook; teachers provide students with readings and direct students to do research, collaborate in small groups, and contribute to class discussions. In the first unit, students learn problem-solving and research skills. Subsequent units help students examine local problems and also research other countries and study the challenges citizens of those countries face. Students come to understand how globalization has helped many people but also has created numerous problems.
In the unit People Who Make a Difference, students research people who have worked throughout history to resolve conflicts, fight injustice, and make the world a better place. They create posters about such individuals as Clara Barton, Nelson Mandela, or César Chávez, which they share with others throughout the school.
Teachers have revised parts of the core curriculum to integrate peace and social justice themes. In a course called African-American History—required by the Philadelphia school district—the teacher asks critical-thinking questions to promote students' understanding of social issues. In one lesson I observed, the teacher posed the following questions:
What is racism?
How long has it been around?
How did it develop in the United States?
What forces may have led to the growth and institutionalization of racism?
One English teacher at Parkway chooses literature with what he calls "edgy and risky" content—including Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe and Sula by Toni Morrison—that raises issues of peace and social justice in ambiguous ways, promotes open-ended discussion, and sparks generative writing assignments. As students progress through these novels, the teacher reads to the class from various other sources, introducing themes like racial and cultural identity, assimilation, human sexuality, and conformity. A key goal is to promote passionate dialogue among students as they examine provocative issues through the novels and to help them take greater responsibility for their own discussions.
A science teacher uses the theme "how humans affect the planet." He examines such questions as Which interactions between humans and the environment benefit society? Which cause hardships?
During the 2007–08 school year, Parkway sponsored half-day seminars for the entire school around such topics as the civil rights movement, climate change, and lesbian and gay issues. Speakers came to classrooms to discuss voting rights, the legacy of apartheid in South Africa, and the scourge of land mines as a legacy of war.

Promoting Service
Over their four years, students must donate a minimum of 60 hours of service and leadership to the local community. Many give much more. During the past year, students have worked on election campaigns, contributed to after-school programs, helped rebuild homes in economically depressed communities, volunteered at museums, and supported reading programs at libraries. School leaders encourage students to work with organizations that promote peace and social justice.
Another vehicle for service is the graduation project, a school district requirement that has been adapted to focus on Parkway's theme. During their senior year, all Parkway students design and complete a multidisciplinary project connected to a real-world problem. This project helps them
Better understand peace and social justice issues.
See the connection between social justice issues and the world of work.
Demonstrate and improve competence in research, reading, writing, and giving presentations.
Topics chosen during the 2008–09 school year included worldwide food shortages, ethnic cleansing in Darfur, and violence in Philadelphia. Every senior project includes service learning as well as a research paper. The culminating activity is a presentation on the student's topic to a panel of teachers and outside community members.
For example, one project focused on the connection between violence and the media. A student researched the prevalence of violence on television and in movies and its effects on young people. She also discovered how the Internet has made it easier to access information that promotes violence, such as how to make a bomb. Working with Mothers in Charge, a Philadelphia-based group aimed at reducing violence, she developed a presentation on her topic suitable for 9th graders.

Making a Difference
Developing powerful social responsibility experiences for students in these four crucial areas has taken continual commitment by school leaders, enthusiasm from teachers, and hard work by volunteers and outside consultants. The results have been very positive. In addition to the changes in school culture and test scores cited earlier, teachers report that students show greater initiative in planning and implementing the school's peace and justice activities. Students are also actively involved in resolving conflicts, show more tolerance toward diversity, demonstrate greater understanding of social justice issues, and more frequently participate in service activities.
Parkway's success illustrates how any school can transform itself into a place that develops socially responsible young adults. Other schools that wish to build socially responsible attitudes and skills in students need to commit to this task by rethinking school culture, designing programs and courses that enable self-reflection, integrating appropriate themes into the curriculum, and promoting service learning. A comprehensive emphasis on developing social responsibility will enable students to make a difference in their schools, families, and communities—and will create students with the skills a conflicted world needs.

Endnote
1 Parkway students' standardized test scores have increased from 40 percent to 45 percent proficient or advanced in mathematics, and from 54 percent to 64 percent proficient or advanced in reading.

Jul 21, 2009

The Third Annual Makassed English Language Teacher's Conference in Bekaa Valley

The two days June 26th & 27th, 2009 were very different and special for the Makassed Schools in the Bekaa Valley. The 3rd Annual Makassed English Language Teacher's Conference was held there in Al-Marj School and it was entitled "ENLIGHTENING LIVES THROUGH CREATIVE AND EFFECTIVE TEACHING".
Different topics were presented by Makassed teachers and coordinators. Most of the presenters were from the Makassed Schools in the Bekaa Valley, in addition to two American fellows, a Makassed teacher from the South, and some other Makassed teachers and coordinators from Beirut. Our President Mr. Amine Mohammad Al Daouk and the director of education in the Makassed Schools, Dr. Kamel Dallal, showed their pleasure and proud of such a successful Makassed conference, and they promised of having annual conferences in Bekaa in the coming years. Also, the presenters were graduated by having certificates from the Makassed Association.




In these two days, six workshops and nine presentations were provided. The presented topics were universal such as; "HOW TO CREATE AN INTERACTIVE CLASSROOM? AND HOW CAN A TEACHER BE INTERACTIVE?" BY Naela Sabry ,"ERROR CORRECTION" By Nada Hammoud, " LEARNER'S DIFFERENCES " by the couple Fatima Shahadi & Fatima Darwish, "VOCABULARY STRATEGIES " By Zeina Farhat, " MOTIVATION " By Nabiha Karnouh, COMMUNITY BUILDING IN THE CLASSROOM" By Samah Omama, "EXTENDING YOURSELF BEYOND THE CLASSROOM: PURSUING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT " By Natasha Isadora," TEACHING LEARNING STRATEGIES ; KEY WORDS FOR A SUCCESSFUL LEARNING PROCESS" By Inass Akel, "GET STUDENTS TO THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX "By Daniel Sass, "Teaching WRITING IN A CREATIVE, COMPREHENSIVE MANNER " By Hassan Ali ," CREATIVE DRAMATICS FOR YOUNG CHILDREN " By Raymonda Sharaf, "EFFECTIVE USE OF ROLE PLAYING IN LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT " By Rajia Araji, " TREAT LISTENING AS A CHALLENGING AS A MENTAL TASK " By Ghassan Abu Fard, " INTERACTIVE 6+1 TRAIT WRITING MODE " By Rola Kazem, and "TEST ANXIETY " By the Rana Lawand and Sahar Chaer.
In addition to the presentations, there were samples of students' and teachers' work through TRADE FAIR of both Kindergartens and Elementary Cycles, and through the POSTERS which were done by students of Makassed Schools in The Bekaa Valley and The South. At the end of each day there was a lunch of all the Makassed teachers and all the participants who shared in the Conference.
Written by Naela Sabry
Makassed coordinator in the Bekaa Valley