Activities for Building Student Character

Citizenship is the legal status of an individual living within a particular country. Having citizenship gives people rights and responsibilities as well as a sense of belonging to a community. Citizenship can influence the lives of people as it gives people a sense of identity and how to live their life.

The teaching of character strength is an endless collaboration bounded by the teachers and the parents, considering the fact that both are responsible for teaching kids appropriate character strengths. Many schools have created programs for teaching character strengths, which also do their best in involving the parents. One of the schools that have been successful in doing this is the KIPP Academy middle school. KIPP started teaching character strengths in the hopes that one day their students

“Can We Teach Character? An Aristotelian Answer” by Edwin M. Hartman is an incredibly well written article on whether, as the title states, character can be taught. I will attempt to critique this article and illustrate points that may have been excluded, but the article is extremely well rounded. The purpose of the article is to determine whether teaching ethics is worth the time taken, whether students will actually act better as a result. Hartman translates Aristotle’s thoughts well, and overall it is a beautiful piece of writing.

Caring is showing that you’re willing to help anyone with any chance you have. I value caring a lot, if the world could care about one another

I was asked to provide an ethics curriculum for the children in our school because of complaints from some parents in regards to classroom behaviors and children’s attitudes. “When we think about the kind of character we want for our children, it’s clear that we want them to be able to judge what is right, care deeply about what is right, and then do what they believe to be right—even in the face of pressure from without and temptation from within.”(Elkin,2004) I propose to include character education in the curriculum. This will allow students to work together as groups, opportunities to make classroom rules, discuss situations in books where the main character maybe “right or wrong”, discuss different ways situations can be handle in every classroom as they study different topics, and give them some community service work to do. The students will have the opportunity to use their critical thinking skills while learning, engaging, and expressing feelings of their own through the interaction in the classroom. They will learn to use these skills throughout their lives and feel more confident in themselves. At the end of this experiment students will become more happy and less negative behavior in the classroom. “This means that equal amounts of happiness always count equally; nobody’s well-being matters more just because he is rich, let’s say, or powerful, or handsome.” (Rachels, 2012)

Building moral character is a quality college can provide that is often overlooked. In college, students are faced with tough challenges and overcoming those obstacles helps build character. Mike Rose the author of “Being careful about character” writes that “One of the powerful strands in the current discussion of character education is that it might succeed where academic interventions have failed to reduce the achievement gap” (Rose 46). Rose’s quote solidifies the argument that students need to learn character development. Furthermore, Rose states that “In an attempt to counterbalance that narrow cognitive focus, educators have begun to emphasize developing qualities of character, arguing that, as much or more than cognition, these qualities account for success in school and life” (Rose 44). The quote shows that colleges are wanting to develop character skills in their students because by doing so it will help them not only now but for their future. Character development is significant for students because it allows them to become more well-rounded people of society. Moreover Jay W. Brandenberger and Nicholas A. Bowman the authors of “Prosocial growth during college: Results of a national study” further studies how moral development is important in college by saying “Ethical growth and prosocial development are increasingly salient learning outcomes in higher education. Previous research has shown

Building our character should be done on our own and outside of school like at home or church. I think our parents have a big impact on how their kids’ character is built and how they act. We learn from

As defined on Dictionary.com, the word caring means, “Feeling and exhibiting concern and empathy for others.” Caring looks like checking up on a friend or writing them an encouragement note. It sounds like asking a friend if they need anything when they are going through a difficult time. While this word had many meanings, it describes a person who is always there for others and supports them through the good and bad times. I express care by wanting the very best for the people in my life and doing whatever I can to help them.

Now days, California has the opportunity to build classrooms that teach values and help develop positive character traits more directly. With the adoption of the Common Core Standards, we can teach academic lessons along with lessons that teach values and character at the same time. Students can not only learn about what happens to characters in stories, but also learn the ethical part of questions and ideas in books. By embedding values of Character of Education through out the school day makes it easier to reinforce values within the students. It gives the message that values and morals are not something that last and matter for one or two moments, but create the sense that once acquired, they become a part of who we are. Developing critical thinkers with character traits helps the whole child, not only the academic student. The fact that we use our academics to make sure our students understand and internalize that being an

Caring is the action you take to helps those who need you. The actions you take might reflect the person you are, by being caring for those around you it shows that you are very generous and kind. By caring, you could change people's perspective

To begin with, the relationship between the higher education and higher moral standard is unclear. Up to now, no conclusive evidence has been found to substantiate a positive correlation between the two things. However, moral issues of students have been challenging schools for years, some educators believe that the focus should be more than on just knowledge and skills being taught. To help students improve their moral standards, Character education, a pedagogical program that value students’ moral development, has been proposed, and widely used in schools. According to an investigation, 26 states of America had already allowed character education to be carried out in schools (Stiff-Williams, 2010). Although much emphasis was placed on the school as a transmitter of moral values, the effect of education

This experiment will investigate the effectiveness of Character Education in improving school climate from the perspective of students. In order for

A broad description of citizenship is to be a citizen of a state. This can entail numerous responsibilities and opportunities. With that in mind, it is easier to think of citizenship not just as something that is owned and held, like a piece of paper, but instead is a responsibility that holds positive consequences if a citizen upholds their end of the deal. Not only is it a responsibility, but it is a type of contract between the individual and the state. By making it a contract it holds those responsibilities and rewards that both sides obtain and uphold at an equal matter. Although some freedoms are often given up for citizenship, there is an understanding that the contract between the state and the citizen is not lessened. With the idea of a contract, it is interesting to explore what are the rights and responsibilities of both the individual and the state, and also how far does the state extend in the sense of citizenship as a contract, it is possible to have global citizenship.

Nowadays the word "justice", being on everyone 's lips, is used so often that it may signify nearly anything. Though one of the main meanings given by modern people is the interchangeability of justice with the word “fairness”. Indeed, in any situation occurred in our everyday life we all want to be treated in a fair way, because we believe that we deserve equal and unbiased treatment - one should not be paid any less because of gender, one should not be judged more roughly because of one 's skin color or one should not wait longer for service because of what one

Moral education can be described as the guidance and teaching of good behaviour and values. It is taught to young children in schools, providing them with a sense of politeness and lawfulness. The critical objective of moral education is to instruct these human values in the students. When defining moral education we are often inclined to two outwardly opposed perspectives: traditional character education which is focused on the development of specific kinds of virtuous traits and habits (Narvaez, 2006) and rational moral education which focuses on moral judgment and reasoning regarding justice and fairness.