May Character Trait – Integrity
May 18, 2009
Integrity – the character trait that summarizes and includes all the character traits being emphasized during the school year. Even Webster’s Dictionary defines integrity as “completeness, wholeness, or soundness” All those definitions lead to our choice of Integrity for our Character Education program as the final trait before school dismissal for the summer break.
W. Clement Stone states “Have the courage to say no. Have the courage to face the truth. Do the right thing because it is right. These are the magic keys to living your life with Integrity”.
Those three examples are a summation of what we hope to accomplish with our students. If each of our students could honestly say they are able “say no, face the truth, and do the right thing” consistently, what a different classroom environment we might have.
Think of a significant person in your life. What is it about him or her that made an impression on you? Were they always honest? Were they dependable? Did they understand your failings, and help you to grow from such experiences?
Buckminster Fuller, with his varied background as engineer, inventor, designer, and architect stated, “Integrity is the essence of everything successful”.
If we hope to encourage and promote integrity in our students we must model it for them. Especially at this time in the school year, it is often easy to be less than patient with some students. But isn’t it in just such situations that we are called on to be true “persons of integrity”?
Reviewing what we have emphasized during the school year – Honesty, Responsibility, Compassion, Perseverance, Loyalty, Justice, Self Reliance, and Self Discipline is an opportune time to wrap those character messages in the mantle of Integrity.
It is also a marvelous opportunity to share with the students the progress each has made in each of these character traits.
Some brainstorming ideas for our final character trait for the year –Integrity
- Ask students to give a short definition of each of the traits.
- Encourage them to give an example of a classmate who has grown in any of these traits.
- Discuss the difference it has made when students take the character message seriously
- Compose a class Letter to the Editor for the local paper outlining some of the highlights of “Character Improvement in Our Classroom.”
- If appropriate, have a Character Celebration with Integrity as the theme, emphasizing how that concept embodies all the other traits we have focused on during the year.
Parker J. Palmer reminds us, “Good teaching cannot be reduced to technique. Good teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher”.