At NSA our approach to Character has evolved over the years. At first we used a directly taught approach with an emphasis on application through service learning. Our children learned many attributes of famous heroes and great people. All of these accomplishments line our hallways and show the power of goodwill innate in children. NSA was named a Character School of Education for Colorado in 2010. Yet the more we evolved, we came to realize that Character is not a program, not a process, not a curriculum. It is what we believe about children & how they learn. It means that we, as staff and parents, share those values & model them daily. At NSA we teach Core Knowledge, as well as Core Character. Both of these Cores overlap like a Venn diagram. While we continue to use a thematic approach and engage in weekly discussions on all grade levels, we believe that character is expressed through the culture of our school. As a school, we firmly believe that our parents are the children’s first teachers. Our role is not to supplant but to support what the parents believe and to provide an environment where we teach and model those beliefs. At NSA, we do not ponder the question, “Can Character be taught?” Rather, we continually seek ways to improve, refine, and further our cause of growing the goodness of every child in a Core of Knowledge and a Core of Character.

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