Students set personal goals at the start of the year.

 A focus on the whole child and each child’s moral and social development pervades the program at Beauvoir the National Cathedral Elementary School, a 2011 National School of Character. The school invests a great deal of time and resources into the “social curriculum,” which is seen as being just as important as, and even part of, the academic curriculum.

All classes spend the first 6 weeks of the school year developing class norms according to the Responsive Classroom methodology. Part of this is the development of class constitutions, contracts, or promises.

Students also set specific personal goals called “hopes and dreams.” Both are posted and referred to regularly in each classroom. During daily morning meetings in each classroom, students greet each other, play a game together, share something of importance to one or more students, and read the morning message.

Even the youngest Beauvoir students start the year with learning the social curriculum in age-appropriate ways. When entering Pre-K, all students are given stuffed bears that they name, make clothes for, and then use for role playing throughout their first two years at Beauvoir. The bears are a tool to teach empathy teachers adapted from the book Bears, Bears, Everywhere by Luella Connelly.

Beauvoir is one of five cathedral schools located in the U.S. and one of three on the beautifully maintained grounds of the National Cathedral located in Washington, DC. Beauvoir is a private primary school, serving preschool aged children through third graders.

Beauvoir will be presenting at the 18th National Forum on Character Education in San Francisco, Oct. 19-22.

For this reason, it is always heart-warming to hear about schools or programs that have taken it on themselves to make prom night an option for all who want to attend by alleviating some of the financial considerations surrounding the event. Earlier this month, NBC’s Washington, D.C.-affiliate reported on one such program initiated by a marketing teacher at a local high school. The class gets hands-on experience with marketing by promoting a prom shop opened in a local mall that provides free dresses, shoes, jewelry, and handbags to any student that wouldn’t otherwise have a chance to go to the prom. The shop is staffed by adult volunteers and every item is donated to the group.

Even here at CEP, we recognized a Promising Practice in 2009 from Paul M. Dorman High School that runs a similar program called “Operation Fairytale.” By receiving donations from local employees and businesses, the program is able to provide dresses, shoes, accessories, and restaurant gift cards to help those students whose families would not be able to afford to expenses. Participants in the program complete several requirements, including an essay and community service project, which keep them invested in working towards their goals.

Does your school face similar difficulties? What ways have you found to make prom be more accessible to your students?

By the fall of 2008, Greenfield Elementary School was well on its way to integrating its core values of respect, responsibility and kindness into our school culture.  This is when we began the serious task of taking a critical look at our school-wide discipline system, through the eyes of the Character Education Partnership’s 11 Principles and our own core values.

What Discipline Looked Like Then
Our school operated with a “ticket” system for severe infractions (from a list of disrespectful and unsafe behaviors) and “card turns” in the classroom (green to yellow to red and beyond).  Students who earned a ticket also earned the consequence of after-school detention.  Students who “got to red” on the color chart missed a recess or lost a similar privilege.  Chronic card turns also resulted, ultimately, in the student receiving a ticket as well.  On the reward side, we offered “Caught Being Good” slips for children who “did the right thing” when they thought no one was looking.  These slips were pulled from a jar in the office once a week for prizes at the school store.

At that time, our school was a well-organized and safe environment where students had consistent, clear and well-defined limits (rules) and consequences.  In the classroom, there was order and predictability.  Our school had an overall feeling of calm – due primarily to this consistency, coupled with the high level of warmth and kindness emanating from our staff.  On the surface, our discipline system worked.  Yet, there were several underlying problems it was unable to address or mitigate.  For example, students with chronic behavior problems never seemed to improve and often times got worse.  Teachers commented that, although efficient and expedient, the use of card turns often created anger, resentment and discouragement in students that seemed to last all day.  Our fifth grade teachers finally decided to do away with card turns for this very reason.  We also began to realize that our “Caught Being Good” slips had little or no effect on disruptive students, nor did they give our more compliant students any framework for understanding their own moral choices and why they were good or bad.

The Change Process
Using the 11 Principles rubric and the recommendations from our NSOC site visitors (we had been named a NSOC Finalist in May 2008), we began the change process.  Our Character Education Committee developed a sub-committee on school wide discipline.  It was co-chaired by second grade teacher and lower team leader, Lynn Cronin and school social worker, Katie Ehmann.  They researched best practice and character-based discipline in school.  We then met as an entire committee with representation from every grade level, special classes, support services and community-based services.  We used the Professional Learning Community model to begin working together to formulate a new, character-based system of discipline.  We started by reading selected research, discussed our current practices in light of this research, and made lists of what we do well and what isn’t working.  We created new school rules based on our core values and began to think deeply about how children learn.  We began to model and practice more and more when our students didn’t display the behaviors we were asking them to demonstrate. These discussions guided us in the formulation of a logical and natural consequence approach to discipline.  We also embraced three compelling strategies we learned from the Responsive Classroom model: loss of privilege, “you break it you fix it” and apology of action.   In March, 2009, we launched our new plan by totally eliminating card turns, tickets and “Caught Being Good” slips.

What Discipline Looks Like Now
In order to provide a visual tool for teachers to refer to when making critical decisions about student discipline and to provide a consistent framework for such decision-making, we created a pyramid of interventions in graphic form.  On the base of the pyramid were all the school wide practices that support character development, teach children the “whys” of good behavior and build the social-emotional culture of the school.  These practices include Morning Meeting, “Solve-It-Spot,” class and grade level (team) meetings, peer mediation and leadership group.  On the next level are mild levels of intervention such as “Refocus” (tool to allow students to refocus and rejoin the group without the disruption of teaching or learning); logical/natural consequences; modeling and practice and discussion.  Moderate interventions include those mentioned above:  loss of privilege, “you break it you fix it” and apology of action.  For serious discipline matters, we now us a Reflection Sheet that has guided, character-based questions that help students understand how their behavior hurt others: including classmates, teacher, parents/family and themselves.  Before they tell us their plan for solving this behavior problem, students meet with 2-3 adults in a “character” conference to go over the reflection sheet and talk about it in depth.  Our goal is to create students who are intrinsically motivated to “do the right thing, even when no one is looking.”  At the very top of the pyramid are those interventions that are part of a comprehensive behavior support plan that is individualized for those students who need this type of support.  We are in the process of studying Ross Greene’s Collaborative Problem Solving model for use with individual students in the future.

A Work in Progress
We just finished creating a discipline folder with forms and suggestions for all staff members to use.  We are still discussing what works well and what needs revision.  We feel that we are on the right track toward creating a school culture where students really learn about the whys of good behavior, grow in conscience, develop morally and socially and understand at a deep level our core values of respect, responsibility and kindness.

Peace-It-Together:  Character Education Strategies for Life
What do playgrounds, lunchrooms, buses, after school programs and neighborhoods all have in common? They are the “hot spots” where many social and behavioral issues take root and then encroach on classroom learning time. Twelve years ago, some members of our school decided to take a proactive approach and formed a study group to address these issues. The  result was a curriculum to give students the skills and strategies to become effective problem solvers in and out of school.

As we developed and implemented lessons, the Peace-It-Together program was born. The program has three components that include lessons on Building Community, Making and Keeping Friends and Making a Difference.

Key to the program is the process of establishing a common language and expectations for students in all settings. This is an ongoing and continuous process involving our entire school community. Our school motto is “At Robinson School We All CARE.” The focus is on each of our core values: Community, Acceptance, Responsibility and Excellence. Students who display these values are recognized by all members of our staff with coupons proclaiming they are “Kids Who Care.” An essential feature of the program is having each student visit the principal/assistant principal to share the reason why the accolade he or she earned the accolade.

Engaging parents and the community at large in support of our goals is essential.  We introduce the program to parents as we welcome them into our school community at Parent Information Nights and Curriculum Nights. Brochures sent home at the beginning of the school year include information about the I Care Rules, Solution Wheel and common language used in our school. Parents are eager to attend the many workshops offered on our character education endeavors.

Finding time for character education in an already full academic program is always a challenge. The solution is to further integrate character education into the curriculum. For example, writing prompts may ask students to write about a time when they were responsible or caring. During literacy, shared reading experiences may include literature from the CARE to Read collection. These books focus on each core value in an age-appropriate manner. The Little Engine That Could could exemplify the core value of Excellence and trying your best.  In social studies, students study famous Americans and discuss the character traits of historical figures such as Rosa Parks, Neil Armstrong and even our school’s namesake, Revolutionary War hero, Col. John Robinson.

Social skills and pragmatic language learning are integrated into the day with the Recess Club program. Teachers and specialists meet regularly with classes during snack time. Topics include strategies for making recess successful such as how to invite a friend to play and what to do if the friend declines the invitation. Teachers role play strategies and then guide students in applying these strategies during recess. Parents are routinely updated through a Recess Club newsletter so that they may follow-up with students at home.

Our School Advisory Council consults at each monthly meeting about current Peace-It-Together initiatives and compassion projects.
The community supports our annual compassion projects, which include collecting hats and mittens for homeless families, making gift bags for senior citizens and conducting a pet food and book drives.

The School Advisory Council surveys parents every two years and the feedback about our social competency program and school climate is quite positive. Parents report that they are successfully employing the program’s common language and strategies at home and that their children are aware and invested in our core values and goals. A recent survey of our second grade students indicated that 98% knew of at least two strategies from the Solution Wheel to try when experiencing a problem situation.

Recently a parent reported that her son told her he was angry with a classmate and wanted to retaliate but thought about it and said, “I can’t do that because I go to an I CARE School”! In our opinion there is no better testimony to the impact of our work on students’ lives in and out of school!

How does your school make sure that character lessons at school continue at home and in the community?

We have heard it said many times that “learning is power,” and while obviously this is true, we often do not examine how we empower the learner.  How do we create an inviting atmosphere where students have autonomy? How can they apply the knowledge, skills, and values we have taught them to become moral, ethical people who are committed to themselves and the communities they live in?

In the Fox C-6 School District student empowerment is woven into the fabric of everyday living, everyday learning.  When students are provided meaningful, authentic learning opportunities that spark their natural interests and goals for learning, they are transformed from passive learners to empowered learners.  To empower students means to step away from our comfort zones and let students become the teachers, facilitators, and leaders in our schools.

In the Fox C-6 District students are empowered when they take it to the Summit!  Our annual Student Summit is a unique model to foster student empowerment. Student representatives from each of our 18 schools collaborate with teachers, principals, board members, community members, and superintendents to solve real problems.  Past Summit topics have included bullying, cyber safety, health/wellness, and service-learning.

As students unleash their creativity to formulate action plans addressing these issues within their individual schools, adult stakeholders play a critical part in modeling important skills, helping to teach and facilitate active listening and the delicate process of criticizing ideas and not people. As they dialogue with students, they serve as springboards to take students through the process of problem solving, mirroring back to them their ideas.

Back at their own schools, teachers and principals help students carry out their plans, providing the resources needed to see the plans reach fruition. Each year as we look out across our District Service Center, there is nothing more powerful than to see all stakeholders creating an important, transformational component to the educational process, the transfer of knowledge from teacher to student, to student to teacher.  This is just one, pointed approach that we use to empower our students to bring relevance to their learning and development of their character.

Our Student Summit’s success is a direct result of a carefully planned, methodical, and shared leadership approach.  The Summit’s theme is determined by the superintendent and then organized through an assistant superintendent and our district character education leader. The leadership shared between principals, teachers, and students then cultivates the projects to their successful completion.

The rewards from doing such an event are far greater than we ever anticipated.  It has broken down the walls between the schools and brought a small town feel to a district of 18 schools and more than 12,000 students.  We are not working in isolation anymore, but through a shared process that requires and recognizes the efforts of all stakeholders. This is a tremendous hallmark to this event.

Students are given the opportunity to try and even fail.  Staff must walk a fine line as they assist students in planning and leading their initiatives.  Staff must understand the difference of helping versus controlling. Students must be empowered through activities that give them opportunities to be successful and help them acquire the confidence and skills to eventually develop more significant projects.

Starting with smaller projects is critical in achieving the best long term success for students.  Reflection time is also essential for students to practice evaluating their initiatives. This gives them an opportunity to pinpoint successes and weaknesses. To foster student empowerment staff must consider, “How can we effectively prepare our students to be successful, empowered leaders? What skills must they have?”  Once this is determined, proper training of students and staff must occur to bolster shared success in developing students into empowered learners.

One of the greatest values to empowering students is that it results in greater power for the learning community. The alienated student no longer exists. Students who were once passive learners are active learners and are thoroughly engaged in a learning process that taps into their ideas and their voice.  For some students, their school is the only place where their voice is heard.  In the Fox C-6 District student voice is loud and it is heard!

We know that we can develop students who will take their voice and be empowered to teach, transform, and touch those around them in a very profound way.  In the words of our superintendent, Dr. Dianne Brown, “The best data that you can get is from your students.  They are our greatest resource; they live it every day.”

We must have the courage and responsibility to listen to students.  If they are to lead our society, we must be willing to learn from them.  Listen to your students. Give them a voice. Empower them to learn and lead!