Character Educators Applaud Educators and Community in Winning National Honor
October 25, 1999--After being named a 1999 National School District of Character, Wake County character education leaders were quick to praise the hard work of the community and educators in developing a way to teach students about good character.
"I was thrilled," said Judy Hoffman, a Wake County Board of Education member who chaired the board when she introduced the idea six years ago. "I was very excited and very proud of all the people who have worked so hard."
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Character Educators Applaud Educators and Community in Winning National Honor Teachers Fit Character Education Into Their Lessons Character Education Is a Community Effort Character Traits Character Education Mission Statements, Objectives and What You Can Do Character Education Partnership North Carolina Character Education Partnership |
The award was announced Oct. 18 at a Washington, DC, news conference held by the Character Education Partnership, a national nonprofit coalition that works with Boston University's Center for Advancement of Ethics and Character to encourage character education. The award was presented at the partnership's national conference Oct. 23 in Charlotte, NC.
"Our goal is good citizens. We want students to plug these character traits into their decision making because they realize this is the right thing to do," said Anne Lee, Wake County Schools character education consultant. "The definition of character is the way you act when no one is looking."
Character education benefits schools and communities, according to Lee who became a consultant for the school system after she chaired the task force that studied and defined the initiative.
"School officials and teachers will benefit because students will know these character traits. Teachers are not going to have to spend 10 minutes out of every class period 'putting our fires' because students come without pencils or paper, or they didn't do their homework, or they copied someone else's test paper, or there's a fight," Lee said. "If I am a member of this community and I have no children or grandchildren, I'm still going to benefit if Wake County is a more caring place, a place in which citizens are more responsible. Everybody benefits."
The Wake County Schools character education initiative began when Hoffman appointed Lee to chair a 32-member committee that was charged with investigating the idea and determining traits the community agreed were standards of good character. At the first meeting of the task force, Lee posted a paper on the wall and asked people to write down suggested character traits. They came up with 63 ideas.
"We didn't know what would happen at that first meeting," Hoffman said. "I left feeling no doubt in my mind that people in this community wanted the school system to take some leadership in talking about this with children, demonstrating these traits to children, and modeling these traits to children."
The task force worked to narrow the list to eight traits and then clearly define each one. The community voted on the final list of traits. Ballots were sent home with students, and available in the newspaper and at the county library.
"From the very beginning we wanted this established as a community effort," Hoffman said. "This was not the school system teaching character. The school system was willing to take leadership in bringing together the community around teaching good character."
The task force also firmly stated that character education should be ingrained in all parts of the school day. They wanted each school official and teacher to integrate the initiative in their work and lesson plans.
"One of the reasons we wanted this to be a grassroots initiative was that we wanted parents, teachers, administrators, and students to develop their own program, one they believe in and buy into, rather than us saying this is what you should do," said Lee. "We believed in the worth of having them do that. You're giving more people the opportunity of experiencing it, of practicing it, of coming up with ideas, of having ownership, of really becoming believers in it. That's part of what made this so successful."
It doesn't cost us anything to be modeling good behavior for students and talking about the right kinds of things with them to help steer them in a good direction in life," Hoffman said. "What it takes is thinking about it, working together on it, being consistent with it, and continuing to build that direction so that more and more kids are seeing and hearing more and more about the right behaviors."
Schools and teachers creatively involve students from kindergarten through high school in learning standards of good character. Character education posters and student-made character trait posters and drawings can be seen in classrooms, hallways, and school offices
"Everyone is teaching character education everyday. Every time we interact with someone we are demonstrating character," said Hoffman. "The question isn't whether we are going to teach children character, the question is what kind of character are we going to teach them and are we going to teach them in a collaborative, unified way in the community so children hear the same message over and over again."
The task force completed its work, but many members of the original task force continue to serve on a community involvement committee. The committee encourages community groups and agencies to be a part of the character education initiative.
"The school system is definitely a catalyst to this whole process. I think we demonstrated to many people that it is not only possible, but also desirable for people from all segments of the community to come together and reach consensus about what is in the best interest of their young people. We did that when we selected those eight character traits," said Lee. "The message is that instead of all of us working in isolation, doing our own thing and having our own vocabulary, we need to read off the same page so that all our efforts are coordinated and our impact will be multiplied. And that's what we're seeing happen."