Celebrating Good Character
At Chesterfield, student-made videos teach character traits to all students. The videos show character traits in action in relevant, meaningful ways. The practice directly develops good character in all students. The process begins with a blank slate. Each member of our Character Counts Kids Team (CCKT) was given the nine character traits and held a class meeting to discuss what each character trait means to them and what the character traits look like in our school. The students wrote the script, gathered the props and chose which vignette in which they would act. Filming was done in the morning before school. Parent volunteers did the filming and editing. The students involved in the production teach the rest of the student body by showing character in action in real-life situations, locations, and people portrayed. Through the viewing of this video, the entire school community was able to celebrate our good character. Evidence of success is measured by the CHARACTERplus survey, school climate survey and discipline data. There was a 57% decrease in the in-school discipline referrals comparing the first semesters of 2007-2008. Positive student character is growing, developing and improving and is reflected in the CCKT motto, “Character Counts…Kids with Character!”