Character Education and Curriculum
Occasionally the answer to a difficult question is directly in front of us. Intrinsic worth in teaching Character Education should never be a question of what, but rather how to infuse the curriculum to assist students in managing themselves with a degree of respect and fairness we need to see every day. Viewing the front wall in the ELL class room today, I could see the student agreement created August 6, 2013. The agreement is completely student centered and expressed. The teacher is merely a manager of voices and questions to help students think about answers. Every part of the agreement must be a can statement, which takes the words do not out of the equation (Twining, Michelle 2013). The
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I will keep MY Hands to MYSELF! BE HAPPY and SMILE!
RESPECT EVERYONE!
BE COMPASSIONATE!
TAKE CARE of the ENVIRONMENT… you know, Mother Nature…
Character Education and Even Tempers All students at our school participate in a Character Education Class each week, but beyond that, students can verbalize the GLOs and Habits of Minds. It is important to treat democratic virtues with care in the beginning of the school year, since this will set the behavior pattern for students in the class room, on the playground, and in the cafeteria. The school community is a place to learn and play without the stress of bullying and rude behavior that often causes stressful situations for students and teachers. Parents are affected by the stress of bad behavior as their student(s) may be in trouble with students, teachers, and staff each day. Students who have difficulty minding agreements and lead virtuous lives will have help through counselors. Our campus has a counselor for each level; however, the PSAP (Primary School Adjustment Program) counselor is the most helpful in turning student behavior. Her gentle prodding to get to the root of the problem and set parameters for behavior during play activities greatly assists in bringing compassion and empathy back to the student. Students who are angry are able to vent the problems in their lives while healing. Most schools in our community are Title 1 schools. Together with the
Hays (2008) discussed privilege and biases based on culture and how these privileges and biases can affect a therapist’s work. Having a healthy understanding of self-identity can help understand the role of privilege and biases. In order to help self-reflect, Hays (2008) presented the ADDRESSING model which includes age, disability (born with), disability (acquired), religion, ethnicity/race, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, indigenous status, nationality, and gender. This ADDRESSING model will be applied in this paper.
Many believe child behavior has worsened as a reason for kids having less empathy even though studies show younger generations are becoming more accepting of others. In an ever-increasing number, many students are entering school without the basic values, which many older generations believe this country was built on. Throughout history, education has had two primary goals: to educate people intellectually and to teach them to be morally good. Many principals spend a significant amount of time dealing with inappropriate student behavior. Students learn character from their actions reinforced from their parents or other older adults whom the model and the actions of their peers in the school.
While I appreciated that one of my peers provided feedback on my work, I feel that the feedback that was provided did not fulfill the assignment. My peer did not provide detailed feedback on my paper that could be adequately incorporated in my review and revisions. Most of the information that was provided as feedback were simply statements that reiterated what the prompt question was. Please see the below feedback provided to me by my peer.
The areas of productiveness in this session for me included the paraphrasing and minimal encouragers. Throughout this session I felt that my paraphrasing was clear and concise. It allowed the client to think about what he had said, while being able to provide me with feedback and allowed for the conversation to flow naturally.
In terms of subjective well-being, I like to believe that that I am moderately well-adjusted at this point in my life. I consider myself a happy person as I am physically healthy and am in the process of bettering my life by returning to college. I also have much to be thankful for as my mother as well as my grandfather, whom helped to raise me, both recently, went through a few years of very bad health but they are now in better health. I believe that, at this point in my life, I have no reason to be unhappy so I am trying to live my life in a way that will make me even happier in the future.
I loved the approach taken by Ms. Barbara Gruener at Westwood Elementary located in Texas. In any number-step program, e.g. 5 step, 10 step, or 12 step, they always say that admitting to fault or acknowledging the problem is the first step. Barbara was fully aware of the daily struggles within Westwood’s community (“Character.org,” n.d.). To begin to solve the deep-rooted problem, she discreetly sought out help (“Character.org,” n.d). Since the faculty was divided, it was difficult to get them involved and create unity at the school. Westwood Elementary bases their learning on the concepts of performance character. I chose performance character because of the disruptive student behavior and the lack of sufficient grades held by each student. Barbara Gruener was determined to help each member of Westwood Elementary.
| |the intellectual conversation of topics that were discussed. I also enjoyed the learning |
In the book Character Compass, Scott Seider describes three high performing schools who attribute their academic success to an emphasis on character education. Boston Prep emphasizes moral character, while Roxbury Prep focuses on performance character, and Pacific Rim targets civic character. The three models of character education approach character education in three distinctly different ways, yet there are common threads weaving through all three models. First, all of the schools have regular community meetings as part of their character education programs. The community meetings are meaningful and productive, as they engage students and provide them with a sense of ownership of their character development. Another common thread is the philosophy of psychologist Erik Erikson, that adolescence is a developmental stage during which students question who they are as individuals, and how they fit into the world around them. Addressing these questions is critical to a successful character education program,
Students are not being taught good character in school. Students need to be taught character and participate in clubs to grow their characteristics. Character needs to be taught in schools so that the students can learn how they are supposed to act or behave. Schools are not teaching their students character and they are growing up to be immature adults. Parents want what is best for their children and that is for them to be well educated and behaved. This is important because students are not behaving well or focusing on doing their work. This causes them to fail or get close to failing. Students are also rude to other students and that is one thing that a character class may help. Character is important and should be taught in all schools.
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)
Character Education is schools creating ethical, responsible and caring young people by demonstrating and educating good character on values that are shared throughout the universe. It is the school’s quest to develop the student’s core
This article written by Marvin W. Berkowitz focuses on answering three questions regarding character education. The questions are “what is character education,” “does character education work,” and “what is effective character education?” The ratio of discussion per question is roughly 1:3:6, respectively. Berkowitz informs the readers that character education is truly a complex topic and concept, and Berkowitz classifies character education as rocket science (even using scientific descriptors). By stating that character education complicated, educators are comforted in case they have had failed attempts at establishing a productive character education program in their classrooms. The simple way to view character education is a blend of pro-social
I have always enjoyed writing, and I believed writing was a subject I was naturally good at. I turned in papers that were still rough drafts, I did not evaluate my sources, nor did I ever take the time to fully understand the prompt. It was not until my first semester of college, in my writing composition course, I realized that I had a lot of work ahead of me to be as good a writer as I thought I was. In the writing course, the students were required to compose several essays using different methods to help progress on the course objectives. The work in this portfolio demonstrates that I have used the methods of synthesis and evaluation of sources to advance my critical thinking skills and develop personal responsibility. Though I have
My educational experience is one amazing thing I would never forget. My parents gave me an experience of a lifetime that I would never let go and continue to expand. It was a gift of a great education I could have tossed away but instead I took advantage of it and it expanded my intellect and made me more independent. As a young girl my parents always told me, they wanted a great educational experience for me. They said no matter what it took to get me into good schools, to have a great education they will do it. My parents worked very hard to give me the opportunity to be in private school my whole life since pre-school. They always told me to work hard, be bright and be bold. The educational level I had being in private school my whole life was amazing. What was amazing about my education level is that I was able to take all college prep. classes, I took an AP Spanish class, my teachers were always on top of us to hand in work in time, essays in my English class were based on a college level writing. It was amazing because my school expanded my mind more on a college based level.
What is a personality? A personality is a reflection of a person identity of a human being but we don’t share the same type of personality. There are so many different type of personality in the world some people have outgoing, shy, crazy, and settle personality. There are some people where there culture and surrounding shape their personality traits. In my culture and surrounding it has help me shape my personality in many ways.