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Issue Two -2016
CHARACTER MATTERS
Ed DeRoche, Director
University of San Diego
Character Development Center
For many years, our schools have majored in the three Rs: Reading, Riting, and Rithematic. It
is time for three more Rs: Restraint, Respect, and Responsibility. These three virtues constitute
the heart and core of essential character education virtues
-Harry Dent, educator
MAKE IT REVELANT
What happens when students write about what they are learning and its relevance
to their lives? Researchers tested this hypothesis:
Do classroom activities that encourage students to connect course materials
to their lives increase student motivation and learning?
They found that having students write one paragraph after a lesson encouraged
them to make connections between their lives and what they were learning--writing about eight of these reflections during a semester lead to positive learning
gains especially for students who were “low performers.”
(http://www.sciencemag.org/content/326/5958/1410)
What’s the message here for students, teachers, and parents?
SURF THE C’s
Last month I was talking to an educator from Japan. In our discussion he asked
what the term “21st Century Skills” meant. I told him that in my readings, I found
there are four C’s imbedded in the term are also an integral part of Common Core
standards. The “four C’s are: Communication, Creativity, Collaboration, and Critical
Thinking.
A useful resource is NEA’s 38-page “Preparing 21st Century Students for a Global
Society: An Educator’s Guide to the “Four Cs.”
http://www.nea.org/assets/docs/A-Guide-to-Four-Cs.pdf
THE 4R’s PROGRAM
Reading, wRiting, Respect & Resolution
Here is a social-emotional learning program for teachers and students in pre-K
through sixth grade. Using the English-language Arts framework the program helps
students develop such skills as community building, problem solving, understanding
and handling feelings, listening, cooperation, assertiveness, and dealing with
diversity. http://www.morningsidecenter.org/4rs-program
VAMP
Did you know that many schools and school districts use “VAMP” to frame their
character education programs? VAMP is an acronym for the “Virtues- A- Month
Program.” VAMP helps all school personnel, students, and parents/guardians focus
on a specific virtue. VAMP encourages everyone to be on the same page in the
teaching, learning, and practicing of that particular monthly virtue. It does not mean
the other “habits of the heart” (respect, empathy, perseverance, etc.) are ignored. All
virtues are interconnected. Many teachers/schools coupled with the VAMP
character education framework an “events calendar.” That is, how can the monthly
calendar events (special days) being observed and celebrated during the month that
support the virtue of the month and other virtues.
The Common Core Formula
Common Core + Character Education = Academic Achievement & Good Kids
- Fink & Geller, www.character.org, August 2013
“Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.” (A. Einstein)
Common Core & Character Education: Why is it Essential? How it can be done?
-Whole Child Education, http://www.wholechildeducation.org/
Awesome Stories: A Cure for the Common Core,
https://www.awesomestories.com
Common Core in Action—Edutopia News, July 8, 2015, https://www.edutopia.org/
THINK ABOUT THIS
“Children who scored high on social skills were four times as likely to graduate from
college than those who scored low.”
Teaching Social Skills to Improve Grade and Lives, David Bornstein,
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/24
Character education teaches children how to make wise decisions and act on them.
Character is the "X factor" that experts in parenting and education have deemed
integral to success, both in school and in life. Paul Tough, author of How Children
Succeed, calls that character-based X factor "grit."
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/05/the- benefits-ofcharacter-education/275585/
BOOK QUOTE
Welfare, happiness, well-being must embrace…economic and moral freedom, virtue,
compassion and altruism, satisfying work through engagement with demanding tasks,
a flourishing network of personal relationships, earning the esteem of others, pursing
larger meanings to one’s existence, and having at the centre of one’s life one or a small
number of significant relations define above all by love.
-------Ian McEwan (2015), The Children Act, Penguin Random House, p.15
___________________________________________________________________________________
CHARACTER SIGN ON A SOCCER FIELD
REMINDERS FROM YOUR CHILD
++ I’m a KID
++ It’s Just a Game
++ My Coach is a Volunteer
++ The Officials are Human
++ NO College Scholarships will be Handed Out Today
(The Daily Sentinel, Grand Junction, Colorado, 10/14/15)
For Essay Contest, Conference, Certificate, and News You Can Use Information visit our website:
https://www.sandiego.edu/soles/centers-and-research/character-development-center/
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