Director's
Dialogue

by David B. Wangaard, Ed.D.

Comprehensive character education embraces the strategy of helping learning communities (from a small classroom to a large school district) discover shared values such as respect, trustworthiness, caring, responsibility, fairness and citizenship for the promotion of character. These core values or character pillars are the glue which helps bind our diverse learning communities together. Learning communities which clearly articulate their shared values deliberately teach and model these character pillars throughout the school day. Educators across the country have noted schools which have demonstrated improved academic and behavior outcomes after including character development as a focus of school reform.

The mission of The School for Ethical Education (SEE) is to facilitate the discovery of core values and teach strategies for comprehensive character education. It is our belief that the development of positive character leads to the advancement of responsible and caring learning communities. To this end, SEE offers courses and workshops focused on the topics of comprehensive character education. Some of these topics include: creating caring classroom communities, moral discipline in the classroom and school, teaching values through the curriculum, ethical decision making and conflict resolution. All of these topics are presented with the specific purpose of integrating the pillars of character into the everyday life of students.

A unique feature of SEE offerings includes the availability of a strategic planning strategy for character educators. A part of this strategy includes the character education assessment checklist which may be used in the design of a new initiative or for evaluating the implementation of an existing initiative. We are currently marketing the checklist through a collaborative agreement with The Character Development Group (CDG) (919) 967-2110. CDG provides the checklist and the analysis of results after computer scoring.

SEE’s new web site (Ethicsed.org) is also available to promote comprehensive character education. Specific course and workshop titles are noted along with other resources which advance character education. Our long-term goal is to provide distance learning opportunities via the Internet. Stop in and visit our web site! We look forward to exchanging information with other character educators and welcome your suggestions to improve the dissemination of successful practices. Keep those ethics in action! DBW