Transcript Leadership for Character Development

A Comprehensive Approach to
Effective Character Education
Marvin W. Berkowitz, Ph.D.
S. N. McDonnell Professor of Character Education
University of Missouri-St. Louis
Contact Information
Address: Marillac Hall 402
College of Education
University of Missouri-St. Louis
One University Blvd.
St. Louis MO 63121-4499
Phone:
314-516-7521
FAX:
314-516-7356
Webpage: www.characterandcitizenship.org
Facebook: www.facebook.com/UMSLCCC
Email:
[email protected]
What is character?
Head Heart & Hands
“Good character consists of
understanding, caring about,
and acting upon core ethical
values”
Character Education Partnership
(www.character.org)
The complex constellation of
psychological characteristics
that motivate and enable
individuals to function as
competent moral agents
Marvin W. Berkowitz
What is character
education?
Dispelling Myths:
This is not your mother’s
character education!
Myth #1: Not the role of schools
It is everyone’s role and is
unavoidable:
“All adults involved with
children either help or
thwart children’s growth
and development, whether
we like it, intend it or not.”
Aristotle
Myth #2: Competes with
the “true purpose: of schools
• It is only in the past half century
that America’s schools have become
monomaniacal about purpose
• Sputnik, the
separation of church
and state, and NCLB
• Even the founding
fathers emphasized
the need for schools
to produce virtuous
citizens
Myth #3: Can’t afford to do
academics and character ed
• It is not a zero sum game
• Many educators find that the best
path to academic achievement is
creating caring classrooms and
schools
• Research suggests that high quality
character education results in higher
academic achievement
Character education is…
A way of being, and most
notably a way of being
with others.
For most educators…
It is a NEW way of being.
Character education IS
rocket science
Effective character
education requires
understanding character
development and the
complex comprehensive
approach to character
education
Eleven Principles (CEP)
•Core ethical values are the basis of character
•Character is thinking, feeling and behavior
•Intentional, proactive, comprehensive promotion of
core values in all phases of school life
•School must be a caring community
•Students need opportunities for moral action
•Includes a meaningful and challenging curriculum
•Strives to develop students’ intrinsic motivation
•School staff must be a learning community &
adhere to core values
•Requires moral leadership from staff & students
•Must recruit parents & community as partners
•Must evaluate character of school and students
“Schools are perfectly designed
for the results we are getting.
If we don’t like the results, we
need to redesign schools.”
Paul Houston
Executive Director,
American Association of School Administrators
PRIME Character Education
• Prioritizing character education
• Relationships
• Intrinsic motivation
• Modeling
• Empowerment
Prioritizing Character Education
• There are two primary purposes of
education: academic and character
• Schools often overlook character and
focus primarily or exclusively on
character
• Character has to be an explicit
centerpoint of the school’s mission and
of the school leader’s philosophy
“To consistently build excellence
for students, families, and for the
community, a school must have an
intentional culture based on shared
values, beliefs and behaviors”
Charles Elbot and Dave Fulton
Building an Intentional School Culture
Never will wisdom preside in
the halls of legislation until
Common Schools…shall create a
more farseeing intelligence and
a pure morality than has ever
existed among the communities
of men.
Horace Mann
“I’ve come to the frightening conclusion that I am
the decisive element in the classroom. My
personal approach creates the climate. My daily
mood makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess
a tremendous power to make a child’s life
miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or
an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or
humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my
response that decides whether a crisis will be
escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized
or dehumanized.”
Haim Ginott
“To educate a
person in mind and
not in morals is to
educate a menace
to society”
President Theodore
Roosevelt
Staff Buy-In
• Relationships
– Brentwood Middle School
• Authentic collaboration
• You have to feed the teachers….
– Invest in them; e.g. p.d.
• The Four W’s
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Waiting you out
Work with the willing
Win over the doubters
Winnow out the un-redeemables
Examples of
Prioritizing
• Central to school mission statement
• Character related “touchstone”
• School leader is the champion of the
initiative
• Integrated across all school elements
Resources for
Prioritizing
• Elbot, C.F., & Fulton, D. (2008). Building an
intentional school culture: Excellence in academics
and character. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
• Lickona, T., & Davidson, M. (2005). Smart and good
high schools: Integrating excellence and ethics for
success in school, work and beyond. Washington
D.C.: Character Education Partnership.
• Characterplus (2005). The Characterplus Way: Plan
Implement Refine. St. Louis: Characterplus.
Relationships
• The 3 R’s of character education are
Relationships, Relationships,
Relationships
• Need to consider ways to doing the
same work that also build positive
relationships
• Relationships should be targeted
within and between all stakeholder
groups
What’s done to children,
they will do to society
Karl A. Menninger
Dear Teacher:
I am a survivor of a concentration camp. My eyes
saw what no person should witness: Gas chambers
built by learned engineers. Children poisoned by
educated physicians. Infants killed by trained
nurses. Women and babies shot and burned by high
school and college graduates. So, I am suspicious of
education.
My request is: Help your students become human.
Your efforts must never produce learned monsters,
skilled psychopaths, educated Eichmans. Reading,
writing, arithmetic are important only if they serve
to make our children more humane.
Sadker & Sadker, 1977
A Source of Moral Character
UNRELATED SIGNIFICANT ADULTS
“Invulnerable children”
invariably have an adult
outside the family who takes
an enduring benevolent
interest in the child
“Golden Child” and “Tarnished Child”
Adult culture of the school
• Adults in the school must function as
a caring professional learning
community
• They must “walk the talk” and “talk
the walk”
• The must treat each other as they
want students to behave…with
character!
Examples of
Relationships
• Cross-age initiatives
• Cooperative learning
• Service that builds sustained
relationships
• Professional Learning Communities
• Authentic partnerships
• Looping
Resources for
Relationships
• Urban, H. (2009). Lessons from the classroom:
20 thing good teachers do. Redwood City, CA:
Great Lessons Press.
• Watson, M. (2003). Learning to trust:
Transforming Difficult Elementary Classrooms
Through Developmental Discipline. San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
• Denton, P., & Kriete, R. (2000). The first six
weeks fo school. Greenfield, MA: Northeast
Foundation for Children.
Intrinsic Motivation
• Educators often rush to using
extrinsic motivation to promote
character
• The true goal of character education
is for students to internalize moral
values
• Different pedagogical strategies are
needed to foster intrinsic motivation
Basic Needs of Students
• Deci and Ryan (Self-Determination Theory)
– Autonomy (sense of empowerment)
– Belonging (social connectedness)
– Competence (ability to achieve/succeed)
• Eccles
– Mattering (make a meaningful difference)
– Responsibility (contributing group member)
– Engagement (challenge and enjoyment)
– Identity (knowing one’s place in a social
context)
I
Examples of ntrinsic Motivation
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Developmental discipline
Community service
Studying role models
Guided reflection on character
I
Resources for ntrinsic Motivation
• Kohn, A. (1993). Punished by rewards: The
trouble with gold stars, incentive plans, A’s,
praise and other bribes. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin.
• Dalton, J., & Watson, M. (1997). Among friends:
Classrooms where caring and learning prevail.
Oakland CA: Developmental Studies Center.
• Streight, D. (2013). Breaking into the heart of
character: Self-determined moral action and
academic motivation. Portland OR: Center for
Spiritual and Ethical Education.
Modeling
• Cannot demand from students what
you will not do yourself
• Lickona: The single most powerful
tool you have for influencing a child’s
character is your character
• Students learn more from what you
do than from what you say
• Ghandi: “You must be the change you
want to see in the world.”
Examples of
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Modeling
Peer tutoring
Multi-stakeholder working groups
Teacher (and other staff) behavior
School leader behavior (re: staff)
Open staff discussion of staff
behavior
Resources for
Modeling
• Lickona, T., & Davidson, M. (2005).
Smart and good high schools:
Integrating excellence and ethics for
success in school, work and beyond.
Washington D.C.: Character Education
Partnership.
Empowerment
• Character develops in part through
as sense of one’s autonomy
• Character education should focus on
the empowerment of all stakeholders:
teachers, administrators, support staff,
students, parents, community members,
etc.
• A philosophy of empowerment should be
at the heart of the school
“The first service
that one owes to
others in community
consists in listening to
them. “
Dietrich Bonhoeffer Life
Together
Empowerment
• Character develops in part through as
sense of one’s autonomy
• Character education should focus on
the empowerment of all stakeholders:
teachers, administrators, support
staff, students, parents, community
members, etc.
• A philosophy of empowerment should
be at the heart of the school
Examples of
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Empowerment
Democratic student government
Class meetings
Peer mediation
Student guided curricula (e.g.,
project based learning)
• Student run honor system
• Student advisory committee
• Culture of staff collaborative
decision-making
Resources for
Empowerment
• Power, F.C., Higgins, A., & Kohlberg, L.
(1989). Lawrence Kohlberg's
approach to moral education. New
York: Columbia University Press.
• Developmental Studies Center. Ways
we want our class to be: Class
meetings that build commitment to
kindness and learning. Oakland CA:
Developmental Studies Center.
Evidence-Based Strategies
• The implementation strategies
selected should be theoretically
justified.
• They should also be chosen because
research has demonstrated their
effectiveness.
Best Practices:
What works?
Berkowitz, M.W. & Bier, M.C. (2005). What
works in character education. Washington D.C.:
Character Education Partnership.
[Download from either
www.characterandcitizenship.org or
www.character.org]
Effective Programs
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Across Ages
All Stars
Building Decision Skills
Child Development Project
Facing History & Ourselves
Great Body Shop
I Can Problem Solve
Just Community Schools
Learning for Life
Life-skills Training
LIFT
Lions-Quest
Michigan Model
Moral Dilemma Discussion
Open Circle
PATHE
PATHS
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Peacebuilders
Peaceful Schools
Peacemakers
Positive Action
Positive Youth Development
Project Essential
Raising Healthy Children
Resolving Conflict Creatively
RIPP
Roots of Empathy
SDM/PS
Seattle Social Development
Second Step
Social Competence
Teaching Students/Peacemakers
Teen Outreach Program
Most commonly found outcomes
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Socio-moral cognition (77 out of 106)
Pro-social behaviors and attitudes (71/167)
Problem-solving skills (57/86)
Violence/aggression (46/100)
Drug use (45/97)
Emotional competency (32/50)
Risk attitudes (31/70)
School behavior (28/69)
Academic achievement (21/33)
Attachment to school (20/33)
Research supported methods
• Peer interactive
strategies
• Service to others
• Developmental discipline
• Role-modeling and
mentoring
• Nurturance
• Trust and
trustworthiness
• High expectations
• School wide focus
• Family/community
involvement
• Pedagogy of
empowerment
• Teaching about
character
• Teaching socialemotional competencies
• Induction
• Professional
development
When in doubt…
• Go back to your bases:
– Prioritize character education
– Relationships are the building blocks
– Intrinsic motivation must be nurtured
– Model good character
– Empower all stakeholders