Driving character through policy and practice.

Author and consultant Stephen Covey said a [CEO once introduced him to a group of executives who "really needed this training" and then proceeded to leave the room. The CEO's failure to see himself as part of whatever the problem was reminds me of a similar attitude with boards of education, superintendents and other administrators who have decided to implement a character education program because their students "really needed it."

Such a view of character education fails to acknowledge the contexts in which moral development occurs. Character growth does not occur within a vacuum. Explicit instruction about right and wrong happens within a series of concentric and tangential settings: the classroom, school, community, family, faith community, athletic teams and so forth.

Students, as one of my colleagues likes to observe, have excellent "BS" detectors. They quickly recognize when our talk fails to match our walk. They understand, either consciously or subconsciously, that important values are the ones that individuals and a society actually live. If students are members of a faith community, they will experience the tension created by the precept that we must not love "things" and the larger culture's siren song that things will make us happy, popular and fulfilled.

A Way of Life

Schools can't control the messages of the pop culture, but they do have a large measure of influence and some control over the culture of the school. For many of our students, the school represents a counter-culture. Like most major faith traditions, the school challenges many of the teachings of the pop culture. The school should teach that while much of the culture will judge students by the brand labels they wear, the school will judge students by the content of their character, to paraphrase Martin Luther King. While the pop culture celebrates the sarcastic putdown, the school will treat that as a violation of the respect that all humans are entitled to receive.

Therefore, as school boards and administrators consider taking their unavoidable character influence to a higher plane of commitment, they need to view character education as a way of life for all who live and work in the school setting rather than a program designed solely for students. Schools need to achieve a high level of congruence between the moral values, virtues and principles they teach and espouse and the experiences that students have hourly while in school.

To illustrate, Jim Leming, a respected educational researcher, tells of visiting an elementary classroom as part of an evaluation of the Heartwood Ethics Curriculum for Children. The lesson examined the concepts of justice and fairness through a beautifully illustrated children's story. At the end of the 45-minute lesson, Leming concluded the students had a wonderful cognitive understanding of justice and fairness.

As he arose to leave the room, he heard the teacher announce they would not be permitted to go out on the playground during recess because "Jimmy had misbehaved earlier in the morning." Leming was convinced that given the effective lesson, some students were sitting there wondering why it was fair or just to be punished for the misbehavior of a classmate.

Administrators hearing that story often grin as they recall times when a teacher failed to walk the talk. But in my workshops for administrators, I use the Leming anecdote as a means of urging them to consider the fit between their own values and actions. Have they ever treated a teacher in a way that was unjust?

A Values Directive

If we define values as something we subjectively judge worth having, doing or being, then it should be clear that all schools are value-driven. Some of the values will be commendable. Treating students with respect, helping them succeed academically, building self-esteem, keeping them physically and psychologically safe. Other values, however, can be problematic. Personal ambition at the expense of others. Winning at all costs on the athletic field. Academic attainment built on academic dishonesty.

Based on federal grants to states and surveys by organizations like the Character Education Partnership, as many as half of the schools in the nation are undertaking character education initiatives. Often the effort is based on a perception that increasing numbers of students are coming to our schools with an inadequate moral compass. What is it that distinguishes a school that is serious about character education--what I call a character-driven school--as opposed to a value-driven school?

A character-driven school has at least the following features: First, it recognizes that character influence is an unavoidable role for schools. Whether they embrace the role or not, schools influence character development. Second, they declare through board policy, administrative practice and educational philosophy they will intentionally and explicitly seek to nurture the development of good character.

Third, they identify a set of moral values or virtues and moral principles they will give increased attention to pro-rooting. I emphasize increased attention as a way of acknowledging many teachers and administrators are already seeking to intentionally influence character development.

And finally, they view character education as a way of life for all who work and study in the school rather than as a program to be delivered to students. They understand the damage that occurs when students learn about justice and respect in the classroom but fail to experience those virtues in the everyday life of the school.

A Mixed Picture

I have visited schools where a character education initiative has reflected these four elements. In those schools, a critical aspect of their success has been the principal's commitment to the four elements, a conclusion reached by elementary principal and character education researcher Bob Freado. My experience has been that school districts that successfully implement this philosophy have superintendents who understand their responsibility as character education leaders.

Unfortunately, too often school boards do not view their work as an opportunity to reinforce the moral values, virtues and principles that their staff and students are seeking to live. That became painfully apparent as I talked with a school board about their character education initiative in the presence of security guards who were needed to prevent a recurrence of the fisticuffs that two board members had engaged in earlier in the year. Admittedly, that behavior has been rare, but unfortunately not as unusual as the uncivil remarks some board members make at public and closed meetings.

A 1999 study of the state of character education in the nation's schools of education concluded we are not doing enough to prepare teachers for their unavoidable role as character educators. Even after more than a decade of character education being an education "movement," I find in my classes and workshops many teachers, administrators and school directors have not thought much, if at all, about the school's role in character development. As developmental psychologist and author Tom Lickona has written: "Our schools were founded to make kids good, then to make them smart."

A number of teacher pre-service and in-service programs like those at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania are beginning to address character education. However, I've not found any administrator certification programs or school board orientation programs that offer character-driven schools as a key component of educational policy, administrative practice and instructional philosophy. Until school leaders understand character education as a way of life for how the school can work in challenging areas like labor negotiations, then staff and students will see the disconnect between what is said and what is practiced, and the schools will continue to be merely value-driven rather than character-driven.

Henry Huffman, former director of the Character Education Institute at California University of Pennsylvania, is a consultant on character education. He can be reached at 102 Dyers Stone Drive, Eighty Four, PA 15330. E-mail: hhuffman@ pulsenet.com