Essential Ingredients for Character
Education
 Supporters of modern
character education are learning about the essential
ingredients of successful program development. As noted by
experts in school change, essential ingredients to advance
character education include: 1. Defining the process of
comprehensive character education clearly, 2. Studying multiple
examples of successful character education programs, and 3.
Developing an active site-based leadership team.
The national Character
Education Partnership (CEP) is working hard to help address the first two
essentials by defining excellent process and publishing the stories of
successful schools and districts. CEP’s Eleven Principles offer
a clear definition of how schools can develop their character education
initiative. The Eleven Principles recognize that— 1. Character education
promotes core ethical values as the basis of good character; 2. Character is
comprehensively defined to include thinking, feeling, and behavior; 3. Effective
programs are intentional, proactive, and comprehensive; 4. The school is a
caring community; 5. The school provides students opportunities for moral
action; 6. The school supports a meaningful and challenging academic curriculum
that respects all learners; 7. Intrinsic rewards are recognized as superior
motivators for character development; 8. All school staff share responsibility
for character education; 9. Staff and students demonstrate moral leadership; 10.
The school recruits parents and community members as full partners in character
building; and 11. There is an ongoing evaluation of character education
practices and outcomes.
The CEP Eleven
Principles provide an excellent framework for schools to construct their
definition of good practice. The CEP also publishes the stories of schools
successfully demonstrating the Eleven Principles. For more information you can
visit the CEP web site at www.character.org
or call (800) 988-8081.
A site-based leadership team
is the third essential ingredient for successful character education. Team
membership may vary, but often include staff, students, parents, and other
community members. The existence of a functioning leadership team is one of the
best predictors of long-term success for a character education initiative. The School for Ethical Education
is working with the Connecticut Assets Network (CAN) to provide a
series of workshops for school and community teams to design their own local
program. The workshop series is called the C.A.R.E. Learning Community (see
calendar) and includes
registration for the second annual Connecticut’s Asset’s Based Character
Education Conference. For more information you may visit the CAN web site at www.ctassets.org or call (800) 991-8463.
Supporters of
character education are wise to focus on the three essential ingredients while
advancing a school or district-wide initiative. The C.A.R.E. Learning Community
is designed to help leadership teams address all three essentials. C.A.R.E.
provides schools or communities an opportunity to organize a leadership team,
study success stories from other locations and define their own strategic plan.
We welcome you to join us this spring to help put ethics in action with
C.A.R.E..
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