By
Esther F. Schaeffer
Executive Director and Chief Executive
Officer of Character Education Partnership
Can
character education be successful in most, if not
all, school environments? Or, can it work only
under certain conditions? Will it, for example,
only be successful in suburban schools, or can it
also be effective in urban and rural areas? Will
schools with highly diverse populations find
common ground on a core set of values, or does
character education require more homogeneous
school populations?
About nine
months ago, with a grant from the John Templeton
Foundation, CEP found some answers to these
questions. The project was not structured to
directly respond to them but to identify models
of excellence in character education that were as
broadly representative as possible of the
diversity of the United States. What we found in
the process was that successful efforts in
character education are dependent on dedicated
and committed people. That is, character
education is people dependent, not
environmentally dependent.
The 10 schools
we have identified as "Schools of
Character" should demonstrate that character
education is important for our schools and that
success is achievable regardless of the setting.
The 10 schools
share a common commitment to integrating
character education in all phases of school life
and have seen positive results; yet, they are
places that differ greatly from each other. They
are schools with student bodies that range from
less than 200 students to almost 2700 students;
schools with very different racial and ethnic
student bodies; schools that range from grades
K-2 to grades 9-12; schools where students speak
as many as 35 languages and some where English is
predominantly spoken; and schools in urban,
suburban and rural areas.
Not
surprisingly, these differences have led to a
rich array of ideas and practices; yet behind
these variations are clear themes of similarity
in beliefs and approaches.
These 10
schools have set their sights well beyond simply
raising awareness of values to changing student
behavior in ways that will last a lifetime. They
integrate character education into everything
they do. They enrich academic curricula with
discussions of values. They see the need to help
students internalize core values through action
and integrate community service into the school
day. Most engaged the entire faculty early in
their processes and have reached out to involve
other school personnel and parents. In short,
these schools have worked persistently and
intensely to establish cultures that teach, model
and reinforce core values.
These 10
schools are briefly highlighted on the CEP
website – www.character.org. We are very
appreciative of the research support from the
Center for the Advancement of Ethics and
Character at Boston University. With support from
Business Week and its parent company McGraw-Hill.
CEP recognizes
that there are other schools with similar high
quality character education initiatives, and we
look forward to continuing to recognize these
successful efforts. For now though, we hope that
highlighting these ten schools will excite other
educators and their community with ideas they can
apply in their own schools. We hope, too, that
the diversity among these schools will illustrate
to all of us that character education, when
approached thoughtfully and comprehensively, can
make a difference regardless of the environments
and circumstances in which we live.
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