In a town settled by Quakers, otherwise known as Friends, Principle 10 wasn’t too difficult to sell. A small bedroom community outside of Houston, Friendswood was founded with core values in mind. But knowing about character and putting character into action are two different things, so in 1987 a group of 120 concerned citizens gathered to decide which values would be important to focus on for the students and families in the Friendswood Independent School District. And so our character education initiative began.

When it needed a booster shot, the School Board revitalized and consolidated the initiative by adopting the Character Counts! (CC!) framework in 2001. Westwood Elementary, one of six schools in the district, has been weaving the Six Pillars of Character into the very fabric of our school ever since.

Stakeholders help make Westwood Elementary School a caring community. Our character-building efforts today are extensive; parent and community volunteers clock an average of 1,210 hours per month. Westwood’s Parent-Teacher Organization intentionally organizes family gatherings outside of the school day like grade-level Skate Nights, Donuts with Dudes and Divas, BEAR (Be Enthusiastic About Reading) Night and the annual Round-Up Carnival. These moms and dads, grandmas and grandpas are vital to our school success.

They get very creative in their fundraising efforts by offering teacher treats as silent auction items, creating great connections for kids. For example, the principal donated a bowling outing, the counselor donated a cooking lesson, the assistant principal donated a canoe trip, some teachers donated a movie night, and another teacher donated a picnic in the park. These outings really energize students because they get to spend some quality time with their character role models and faculty, and the treats energize faculty because they get to better know their students more personally while the school benefits financially.

Teenagers from Friendswood High School regularly visit our campus. As Peer Assistance and Leadership (PAL) students, they come to us weekly to mentor. As Math Club members, they tutor. As Hometown Heroes, they lead pep rallies and serve as role models. As Future Farmers of America, they bring their animals once a year for a Go Texan Day. Health Occupations Student Association  students serve as Germ Busters and come to teach us healthy habits. Integrity Teams prepare and teach a monthly character lesson.

Adult mentors from all walks of life are also vital to our character building. Principal’s Partners volunteer to tutor and read one-on-one with students who need a little extra boost. Mystery Readers from the community share their favorite books to make a literacy connection. Parent volunteers cover classes so teachers can participate in our Lunch Bunch program that treats staff to a lunch out with others who have a birthday that month.

Also, The Rotary Club partners with us to help bring our service-learning projects full circle; last year they put money aside to ship the items that we had collected for two “adopted” soldiers on active duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Friendswood Police Department sends a D.A.R.E. officer to conduct safety trainings with our students and teach them refusal skills, courage, and safety.

The local Knitting Guild volunteers to assist in our Knit-For-Service Club efforts. These mentors help our students learn to knit so that they can make caps for newborns and patches for blankets in their quest to reduce the infant mortality rate and Warm Up America! Area and family Veterans are invited and honored by our first graders on Veterans’ Day.

When we hosted a Career Awareness Day last May, some 45 community workers signed up to join us and share information about their career paths with our future leaders.

Finally, the school intentionally works to welcome families to spend some time with us after hours. In a typical year, we’ll host Family Math and Wellness Night, Family Character Night, Literacy Night, What’s Up at Westwood Night, Grandparents’ Night, Parent Preview, and a Second-Grade Musical.

It truly does take a village to raise a child, and at Westwood, we appreciate the unique contribution of every villager as we constantly welcome new friends to the fold.

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If you’re reading this blog, I hope you will be in attendance at the National Forum on Character Education in San Francisco Oct 28th – 30th. Like me, you are probably very excited that character education is gaining in the educational priority lineup!

I happen to be a forum breakout speaker, my name is Sue Lee and I’m presenting Friday the 29th 2:30-3:45pm. My topic is: Thriving – The Power of Positive Emotional Development. The National Scientific Council On The Developing Child out of Harvard, states, “That emotional intelligence is hardwired into the very architecture of the brain.” As a nation and as educators we must become aware of the significance of that in regards to character education. I will be addressing that a child’s character development is not only hardwired in their brain, but the fact that character development/EQ is actually linked to the physical formation of the brain. That phenomena leads to a developing belief that our nurture becomes our nature.

EQ/Emotional Intelligence is what allows us to put our IQ to work. It is how we build and develop character and it begins before birth. We have yet to raise a generation of children who believe in their own abilities and the power of their thoughts. We have yet to raise a whole generation that begins school with similar life skills that will allow children to become the hero or heroine in their own life’s story. As an educator I can’t think of anything more exciting than the fact that we might help children obtain the character skills to live a life, so as adults at the end they might feel they thrived instead of merely survived.

Imagine if every child starting school had:
• A belief in self and in others.
• A belief that “I have what it takes!”
• A belief that “I can thrive!”
• A belief that life is what you participate in, not what happens to you!
• A belief, ”There is awe and wonder in each day.”
• A belief that, “I can do it!”
And a knowing, that the most important conversation they might have in any given day is the one in their own head!

As a life management skills educator I have worked with thousands of adults and practically everyone said, “If only I had learned these skills as a child!” EQ skills, character skills are not only teachable they are easy and fun to learn in the early years of life. I hope you join me as Friday Oct. 29th 2:30 -3:45 as we explore more of these concerns, realities and issues.
See you at the National Forum!
Sue Lee, Creator of “I Believe in Me!” a 2009 Parents’ Choice Award Winner, for her DVD program for preschoolers.
www.ibelieveinme.tv

****Forum presenters, we encourage you to respond with information about your sessions!  What does character education mean to you?   What do you like best about the National Forum on Character Education?

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Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate the convenience of e-mail and Facebook, too, but when I really want to learn something, it’s so much better face-to-face. Teachers know from their classrooms: students retain more information when it is delivered in multi-sensory environments.

I hope that’s how educators will view CEP’s upcoming conference, too—as a rare and important privilege. I know school budgets have been slashed just about everywhere, but educators still have the important mission of helping our students to become both smart and good. The 17th National Forum on Character Education is the place to learn effective ways to do just that.

When you can get away from the day-to-day business of school, you can focus, think, dream, and create. Bring your character education team to the Forum, and go home with a strong plan or a ton of new ideas and inspiration. We even have a team discount: register five people at the same time and the fifth person is free. See CEP’s website for even more ways to save.

I’ve talked to educators who are getting frequent flyer miles donated from their students’ parents or other community members. Another teacher told me her elementary school is collecting “pennies for character.” Whatever is collected will help one teacher to attend the conference. The lucky winner promises to take the school’s mascot along for some photo opp’s at the conference and in San Francisco (their school’s version of a traveling Flat Stanley). And the teacher will share the photos and some lessons from the conference upon return to school. We’d love to hear your stories of how you’re finding ways to finance your trip to the Forum.

Sometimes it takes a crisis like this economy to get people to focus on what is really important. And character education is really important. We need more ethical and compassionate citizens, not more Bernie Madoffs and greedy executives Enron.  Please join us at the Forum in San Francisco. Register by Sept. 27 and save with an early bird discount.

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Here’s a community where commitment to character permeates everything they do. Four schools in the district have been recognized with National Schools of Character awards, and the school district was named a National District of Character. The mayor, city council, and Chamber of Commerce have also adopted the same core values, or expected behaviors, as the school district has. It truly makes for a community of character.

Puppione writes:

The City of Pleasanton, Pleasanton Unified School District and the Pleasanton Chamber of Commerce actively participate in a Community of Character program that encourages people to work together to ensure that individuals and families are strong, homes and streets are safe, education is effective, businesses are productive, and citizens care for one another.

Following the principles CEP advocates and serving as the leading resource for the Pleasanton Program people and organizations in Pleasanton are integrating character education into their schools and communities.

Highlights of the Program include:

• Autonomy/school plans/committees
• District Committee
• Shared Vision
• Embedded in the curriculum
• School Newsletters
• School Brochure
• Shared Lessons
• Evaluations
• City Government Participation
• Chamber of Commerce Participation

The effort has permeated the entire community. A list of the expected behaviors hangs in city hall as well as in every school in the district. 

The mayor begins each town council meeting by reminding all those present that they are to use the Expected Behaviors in their interactions with one another. Businesses pledge to support the Expected Behaviors and display their signed pledge on their premises. Clergy preach the about the Expected Behaviors at worship. Every month, the Rotary Club recognizes a teacher who exemplifies the behaviors. A Character Education Coalition gives visibility to the program and honors an individual who has exemplified a certain expected behavior.

A recognizable unifying logo banners displayed at several key locations (including schools, businesses, and City facilities) promoting each character trait.

Register now for the conference and to experience this wonderful site visit to see effective character in action.

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My sister couldn’t stop talking about how friendly everyone was. “Iowa has to be the most hospitable state ever,” she said. At every stop, people from all walks of life offered their homes to the bicyclists (and there were a lot of them. One count on the first day reported 20,000). The bikers camped out in their yards, slept in their basements, and shared their family rooms.

My sister also noticed a decorating trend in Iowa. “Everyone decorated their houses with words and sayings,” she said, “sometimes just plates on the wall that read ‘Love,’ ‘Family,’ ‘Friendship;’ sometimes framed poems or quotes.” Two she particularly remembered:

“We may not have it all together, but together we have it all.”
“Do take care of the little things or they may become big things.”

I couldn’t help but think there was a connection. Decorating their homes with the core values they believed in surely helped reinforce their hospitable behavior. CEP’s framework, the Eleven Principles of Effective Character Education, begins with a focus on core ethical and performance values. When schools decide what they value most and work to achieve those values, good things happen.

If you want to learn more about CEP’s Eleven Principles of Effective Character Education, there will be lots of opportunities at our national conference, the 17th National Forum on Character Education in October. Come experience the many success stories that have sprung from embracing character education.
From our all-day Foundational Training on Oct. 27, to an in-depth workshop “Aiming for Virtue” to myriad breakout sessions, you’ll find lots of ways to learn more and to develop your own success story.

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Just take a look at the takeaways:

Participants will learn how to help secondary students…

• Develop skills in perspective taking and empathy that lead to respectful and compassionate behavior.
• Appreciate diversity and work collaboratively with their peers.
• Build safe and respectful environments in their classrooms and school.
• Develop positive relationships with their teachers.
• Address underlying thoughts and emotions that interfere with learning.
• Become self-motivated and engaged learners.
• Identify their strengths, set goals, and prepare for their future.

Special emphasis will be given to student transition into ninth grade. I know from my 32 years as a high school and middle school teacher that those transition years are the most challenging and most important. My school set up a mentoring program for seniors to mentor the freshmen and offered welcoming opportunities and workshops. But still, many of the discipline problems and academic challenges came from the ninth grade class. How I wish I could have taken a workshop like this one.

The presenters’ credentials are impressive. Kathy Beland was the lead writer for CEP’s Eleven Principles Sourcebook (2003), a compendium of resources for character education. She is also the lead author of “School-Connect, Optimizing the High School Experience,” a curriculum designed to boost social, emotional and academic skills, and the original author of “Second Step, A Violence-Prevention Curriculum” (grades K-9). In 2009 she received the Sanford N. McDonnell Award for Lifetime Achievement in Character Education.

Co-presenter Julea Douglass also has outstanding credentials. She is associate director of School-Connect and co-author of “School-Connect: Optimizing the High School Experience.”  She served as research associate and program coordinator at CEP and is lead author of the CEP Character Education Evaluation Toolkit. Julea received her M.Ed. specializing in human development and psychology from Harvard University and her Ph.D. in Education from the University of Virginia’s Curry Programs in Clinical and School Psychology.

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There’s even a Facebook page where teachers are posting Letters to Obama where they share their frustrations and concerns about education and hope to influence the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. I’ve been dismayed by much of the rhetoric, and wondered how CEP can help.

At the BOOST conference in Palm Springs, California, I met two elementary school teachers who told me they were just biding their time until they could retire because they were so disenchanted. In response I started telling them about one of CEP’s recently named National School of Character.  I told them about Sullivan Primary School, a PreK-1^st grade school in southern Missouri. What struck me about the school is that these 4, 5, and 6 year old students were leaders. Every student I spoke to knew that if there’s a conflict, they “talk it out, work it out or walk it out [on the “peace path” drawn on the school playground.

But equally impressive to me was their involvement in service learning. These students were doing amazing things. They made pottery bowls with character words (such as “sharing”) on them for a Bowls for Hunger soup night for the homeless. They made quilts for a homeless shelter. Each child brought in a favorite piece of clothing they could no longer wear to be cut up for the quilt squares. Students sewed the squares together and wrote stories about their pieces of clothing. These stories were compiled into a book that was given with the quilt.

As I was describing the school, the two teachers started to get energized and one said, “I wish our school could do things like that.” The other said they were getting a new principal and maybe they could get her to attend CEP’s upcoming Forum. One of the strengths of the Forum is that our exemplar schools all present breakout sessions, so conference participants can see what effective character education looks like.

Coming to the conference really does inspire and energize teachers. At the end of one conference, a participant placed the following note on our message board: “This week makes me wish I had a do over for my whole teaching career.”

I know the old song goes “I left my heart in San Francisco,” but I think teachers will “find their heart” in San Francisco.  Whether you’re new to character education or just want to network and share, the 17^th National Forum on Character Education, Oct. 27-30, in San Francisco will ignite your passion for teaching. Teachers, administrators, counselors and community leaders will find myriad ideas to take back to their schools.

So for the next few months, this blog will focus on conference highlights and fun things to do in San Francisco. I invite those of you who’ve been to the Forum before to share what you’ve liked. What are you hoping to see and learn this year? Why should educators attend?

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