Back to School Thoughts for Teachers
August 24, 2009
For many of you, today or very soon is the first day of school for the 2009-2010 year. We wish you success with your students, and a positive experience for you as well.
As you greet your students and begin to set your personal standards in the classroom and across the campus, please remember that you are a part of one of the most important professions in this country. Character in the classroom is critical not just to your success, but to the success of your students, both academically and behaviorally.
Your modeling of appropriate behavior, attention to detail, and general courtesy are powerful messages in the education process. It is appropriate at this time, to quote again a great message from Dr. Haim Ginott, a former Child Psychologist and Teacher:
“I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that 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.”
You are an educator because you want to teach. You will share not only your academic knowledge, but your values, your opinions and your philosophy of life. You cannot help but make difference in a student’s life.
Our hope for you is that you will in all situations be “an instrument of inspiration”.
Have a wonderful school year, and continue to
THINK CHARACTER!
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”.
April Character Trait – Self Discipline
April 6, 2009
Self Discipline – demonstrating positive patterns of behavior and having the strength of mental and moral courage to accomplish tasks, manage time, and relate effectively with others.
That’s our definition! What’s yours? For the perennial dieter, it might include the discipline to refuse that favorite food. What might it mean for the person dissatisfied with their job, but afraid to leave it in this challenging economic climate?
The writer William Hazlitt tells us “Those who can command themselves, command others.” Modeling self discipline can be a powerful tool in teaching students the importance of Self Discipline. Don’t hesitate to talk about the times when you may not have wanted to do what your job requires. Follow that discussion with the reasons it is important to do what we are supposed to do, and being accountable for accomplishing tasks given to us.
Self Discipline should receive significant emphasis in our work with young people. Completing assigned work on time, doing a chore even though we don’t want to, following directions when we think we have a better way are all situations students may encounter every day.
David Whitman writing about the achievement between white and minority students in inner city schools, discusses the “new paternalism.” In the schools examined for his Sweating the Small Stuff, when teachers took a more paternalistic stance with students, the academic improvements were remarkable. “These schools’ success points to the weakness of progressive education and the strength of traditional moral education.” Whitman encourages educators to join such enthusiasts as Hillary Clinton and John Edwards in praising paternalistic schools.
A strong element in achieving the gains shown in these paternalistic schools is the emphasis on self discipline. Students are exposed to rigorous course work, and expected to not only achieve, but to excel. Is there any reason every educator could not implement such a strategy?
The late Paul Harvey said “Self government won’t work without self discipline in America.” The ultimate purpose of education is molding good citizens for America. We must help students achieve that goal by our modeling self discipline, and by assisting students to make self discipline a habit for life.
The results cited above should encourage us to:
• Expect achievement from every student
• Hold every student accountable for tasks given to them
• Model self discipline in a variety of settings
• Discuss with students the benefits of practicing self discipline
• Encourage students to talk about self discipline with family
Remember – Following the path of least resistance is what makes people and rivers crooked!
Think Self Discipline!
Respect in the Classroom
August 26, 2008
Recently I was conducting my three-hour “Building Good Citizens for Texas” Teachers & Staff Development class in a small school district in east Texas. Usually I begin by asking the staff to discuss why Character Education is needed in schools today. Over the past several years I have received substantially the same few answers – “kids are not being taught values (some say basic courtesy,) any more”, “ kids are meaner to each other today”, “parents are not involved in the child’s life”, and other responses along those lines.
In this most recent experience, however, when I asked that basic question, “What particular value do you see is most needed in your students?”, three people, almost in unison, responded, “Respect”. What a clear indication of what needed to be done in this district!
Many positive strategies are in place in those schools, teachers were generally positive, and quite involved in our activities that day, but it was apparent that they were not reaching the students in the matter of respect.
I am reminded of the Hal Urban article I recently discussed in this forum. A comment from Dr. Urban was highlighted in that column – “What we accept, we teach!” As we continued to discuss causes for the lack of respect in this east Texas district, it became apparent that students were just not being required to strive for the high standards teachers were expecting of them.
Perhaps we are guilty of a similar “blindness” with some of our students. We all acknowledge that at least some of our students come from pretty tough home situations. It can be easy to excuse a child for a disruption if we know they are struggling even to get to school, let alone be attentive, obedient, and positive about the school experience.
But the “real world” for which we are supposed to be training these children really pays little or no attention to your “tough situation at home”.
High expectations are a critical piece of encouraging respect with our students. Harry Wong, the very successful teacher, author and presenter on Classroom Management, quoted a six-year old student who told him, “My teacher thought I was smarter than I was, so I was! How is that for expectations met? Can’t we correlate high expectations by the teacher to higher academic achievement? Worth a try, don’t you think?
Character education is all about having high and consistent expectations that our students will do what is right. We have a serious obligation to help each and every student to, first of all, know what the right choice is, and then make that right choice a habit. We must expect that all students, as well as the property within our responsibility, are treated with respect. That expectation of respect must become a habit. And a critical piece of forming that habit in the students is our modeling of respect by treating each one of our students with respect. Yes, even when correcting or imposing consequences, we must do so with respect.
School has begun for most of you. How about making RESPECT the theme for your room and for your campus? It WILL make a difference.
HAVE A HAPPY AND SUCCESSFUL YEAR!