Understanding What Really Fosters Character and Values

1. Understanding What Really Fosters Character and Values Marvin W. Berkowitz, Ph.D. S. N. McDonnell Professor of Character Education Co-Director, Center for Character and Citizenship University of Missouri-St. Louis

2. Contact Information Address: Marillac Hall 402 College of Education University of Missouri-St. Louis One University Blvd. St. Louis MO 63121-4499 Phone: 314-516-7521 FAX: 314-516-7356 Webpage: www.characterandcitizenship.org Facebook: www.facebook.com/UMSLCCC Email: berkowitz@umsl.edu

3. So you want to promote character and values in your students?

4. Where we go awry • Go for the glitz • Don’t base practice on theory & research • Guided by our implicit (often sub-conscious) theory of the child • Disconnect between parenting and teaching (R5)

5. What is character? It is more than values, but includes them

6. Head Heart & Hands“Good character consists of understanding, caring about, and acting upon core ethical values” Character Education Partnership (www.character.org)

7. What is character education?

8. Dispelling Myths:This is not your mother’s character education!

9. Character education is… A way of being, and most notably a way of being with others.

10. Character education is unavoidable “All adults involved with children either help or thwart children’s growth and development, whether we like it, intend it or not.” Aristotle

11. Character education IS rocket science Effective character education requires understanding character development and the complex comprehensive approach to character education

12. Eleven Principles (CEP) • Core ethical values are the basis of character • Character is thinking, feeling and behavior • Intentional, proactive, comprehensive promotion of core values in all phases of school life • School must be a caring community • Students need opportunities for moral action • Includes a meaningful and challenging curriculum • Strives to develop students’ intrinsic motivation • School staff must be a learning community & adhere to core values • Requires moral leadership from staff & students • Must recruit parents & community as partners • Must evaluate character of school and students

13. “Schools are perfectly designed for the results we are getting. If we don’t like the results, we need to redesign schools.” Paul Houston Former Executive Director, American Association of School Administrators

14. So what works?

15. PRIME Character Education • Prioritizing character education • Relationships • Intrinsic motivation • Modeling • Empowerment

16. Prioritizing Character Education (R1) • There are two primary purposes of education: academic and character • Schools often overlook character and focus primarily or exclusively on academics • Character has to be an explicit centerpoint of the school’s mission and of the school leader’s philosophy

17. “I’ve come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. My personal approach creates the climate. My daily mood makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized or dehumanized.” Haim Ginott

18. “To educate a person in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society”President Theodore Roosevelt

19. Dear Teacher:I am a survivor of a concentration camp. My eyes saw what no person should witness: Gas chambers built by learned engineers. Children poisoned by educated physicians. Infants killed by trained nurses. Women and babies shot and burned by high school and college graduates. So, I am suspicious of education.My request is: Help your students become human. Your efforts must never produce learned monsters, skilled psychopaths, educated Eichmans. Reading, writing, arithmetic are important only if they serve to make our children more humane. Sadker & Sadker, 1977

20. Leadership is critical (R16) • The Principal is parallel to the corporate CEO • S/he has the greatest influence on the organizational culture/climate • S/he is the primary character ed instructional leader and role model

21. Staff Buy-In • Relationships • Brentwood Middle School • Authentic collaboration • You have to feed the teachers…. • Invest in them; e.g. p.d. • The Four W’s (R16) • Waiting you out • Work with the willing • Win over the doubters • Winnow out the un-redeemables

22. Resources for Prioritizing • Elbot, C.F., & Fulton, D. (2008). Building an intentional school culture: Excellence in academics and character. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. • Lickona, T., & Davidson, M. (2005). Smart and good high schools: Integrating excellence and ethics for success in school, work and beyond. Washington D.C.: Character Education Partnership. • Characterplus (2005). The Characterplus Way: Plan Implement Refine. St. Louis: Characterplus.

23. Relationships (R3) • The 3 R’s of character education are Relationships, Relationships, Relationships • Need to consider ways to doing the same work that also build positive relationships • Relationships should be targeted within and between all stakeholder groups

24. What’s done to children, they will do to society Karl A. Menninger

25. A Source of Moral Character (R3) UNRELATED SIGNIFICANT ADULTS “Invulnerable children” invariably have an adult outside the family who takes an enduring benevolent interest in the child

26. “Golden Child” and “Tarnished Child” (R3)

27. School Climate (R13)

28. Character and academics only flourish in the context of healthy relationships. Healthy relationships only flourish in an authentic ethical and pro-social culture.

29. Adult culture of the school (R17) • Adults in the school must function as a caring professional learning community • They must “walk the talk” and “talk the walk” • The must treat each other as they want students to behave…with character!

30. Resources for Relationships • Urban, H. (2009). Lessons from the classroom: 20 thing good teachers do. Redwood City, CA: Great Lessons Press. • Watson, M. (2003). Learning to trust: Transforming Difficult Elementary Classrooms Through Developmental Discipline. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. • Denton, P., & Kriete, R. (2000). The first six weeks fo school. Greenfield, MA: Northeast Foundation for Children.

31. Intrinsic Motivation (R6) • Educators often rush to using extrinsic motivation to promote character • The true goal of character education is for students to internalize moral values • Different pedagogical strategies are needed to foster intrinsic motivation

32. Basic Needs of Students • Deci and Ryan (Self-Determination Theory) • Autonomy (sense of empowerment) • Belonging (social connectedness) • Competence (ability to achieve/succeed) • Eccles • Mattering (make a meaningful difference) • Responsibility (contributing group member) • Engagement (challenge and enjoyment) • Identity (knowing one’s place in a social context)

33. “The new meta-analysis…showed that, in fact, tangible rewards do significantly and substantially undermine intrinsic motivation…there is indeed reason for teachers to exercise great care when using reward=based incentive systems.”Deci, Koestner, & Ryan (2001, p. 2). Rev of Educ Research V 71, n 1.

34. Findings from Deci et al. (2001) meta-analysis • Which rewards decrease intrinsic motivation? • Tangible rewards overall • Task-contingent rewards • Expected rewards • “Although tangible rewards may control immediate behaviors, they have negative consequences for subsequent interest, persistence, and preference for challenge, especially for children” (p. 10)

35. Findings from Deci et al. (2001) meta-analysis • Which rewards increase intrinsic motivation? • Verbal rewards (e.g., praise); however, • Only for college students; no effect for elementary and secondary students • Only if used to provide informational feedback, not if used to control behavior

36. Resources for Intrinsic Motivation • Kohn, A. (1993). Punished by rewards: The trouble with gold stars, incentive plans, A’s, praise and other bribes. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. • Dalton, J., & Watson, M. (1997). Among friends: Classrooms where caring and learning prevail. Oakland CA: Developmental Studies Center. • Streight, D. (2013). Breaking into the heart of character: Self-determined moral action and academic motivation. Portland OR: Center for Spiritual and Ethical Education.

37. Modeling (R4) • Cannot demand from students what you will not do yourself • Lickona: The single most powerful tool you have for influencing a child’s character is your character • Students learn more from what you do than from what you say • Ghandi: “You must be the change you want to see in the world.”

38. Resources for Modeling • Lickona, T., & Davidson, M. (2005). Smart and good high schools: Integrating excellence and ethics for success in school, work and beyond. Washington D.C.: Character Education Partnership.

39. Empowerment (R9,10) • Character develops in part through as sense of one’s autonomy • Character education should focus on the empowerment of all stakeholders: teachers, administrators, support staff, students, parents, community members, etc. • A philosophy of empowerment should be at the heart of the school

40. “The first service that one owes to others in community consists in listening to them. “ Dietrich Bonhoeffer Life Together

41. Empowerment • Character develops in part through as sense of one’s autonomy • Character education should focus on the empowerment of all stakeholders: teachers, administrators, support staff, students, parents, community members, etc. • A philosophy of empowerment should be at the heart of the school

42. Resources for Empowerment • Power, F.C., Higgins, A., & Kohlberg, L. (1989). Lawrence Kohlberg's approach to moral education. New York: Columbia University Press. • Developmental Studies Center. Ways we want our class to be: Class meetings that build commitment to kindness and learning. Oakland CA: Developmental Studies Center.

43. Research supported methods (R5) • Peer interactive strategies • Service to others • Developmental discipline • Role-modeling and mentoring • Nurturance • Trust and trustworthiness • High expectations • School wide focus • Family/community involvement • Pedagogy of empowerment • Teaching about character • Teaching social-emotional competencies • Induction • Professional development

44. When in doubt… • Go back to your base: • Prioritize character education • Relationships are the building blocks • Intrinsic motivation must be nurtured • Model good character • Empower all stakeholders