You don’t have to be an expert in your profession to see the value of character education, even if a single student completes the rubric. For five minutes, observe a school. See if a student holds the door open for another unprompted, every day. See if two students can solve a problem with each other over a collaborative assignment without adult assistance. See if a sixth grade student offers a seat at lunch to a new student with no adults present. These are the fruits of character education, deliberately planted throughout the school’s culture, in much the same way that a school’s philosophy of leadership informs the practices of the institution. That school has decided to purpose on character in the same way that schools that know how to develop leaders have decided to purpose on leadership.
This is the philosophy of the founding principles of Growing Leaders: everything rises and falls on leadership, and leadership begins with character. Before students can lead a team, a classroom, or a community, they have to learn to lead themselves first. That is the philosophy behind character education and why students must learn it in order to make ethical decisions with or without adult support.
Character Education, Defined (and What It Isn’t)
Character education is the teaching of skills, concepts, and attitudes that promote ethical decision-making in the absence of adult guidance. Character education is not moralizing. It is not a feel-good assembly or word-of-the-month program with no follow-through when students reach upper elementary or middle school. Character education, when done right, is a comprehensive curriculum with scope-and-sequence similar to the literacy and math programs schools use to teach students to be self-led and disciplined leaders.
This is the difference between schools that provide character messages and schools that provide character education. The former is advisory; the latter is prescriptive, taught throughout a school or school district. Character education is peer-led when possible, since students are more likely to adopt the behaviors of their own peers, which is why it dovetails so nicely with the philosophy of Growing Leaders.
Or, in other words, character education is the self-led leadership development instruction that is taught with fidelity and scope-and-sequence, and students learn leadership through developing character.
Why Discipline-Only Approaches Fail So Miserably?
How many behavior management systems have you seen in classrooms that seem to do nothing for the culture of the school? How many have you experienced in your own learning career? If you’re thinking that there aren’t many quality systems out there compared to your school’s other resources, you’re not alone.
A simple discipline system works just well enough for the short term, but has little to no long-term gain. It addresses isolated problems, one at a time, and only for as long as the behavior persists. Discipline is inherently reactive, punishing students for inappropriate behaviors while simultaneously rewarding students for appropriate behaviors. While this may work well enough in the short term, it fails to build within students the ability to appropriately and ethically direct their own behavior, which is a necessary skill if students are to be self-directed and self-led leaders.
This philosophy is almost directly opposed to the philosophy of character education, and schools that adopt it as a comprehensive behavior management system will find that they have almost no long-term behavior gains after the first year. That’s right, it’s a stagnant behavior management system. Discipline measures, for all their short-term successes, fail to address the underlying needs of students to develop internalized ethical decision-making skills that allow them to be leaders.
What The Research Says
There are numerous reviews of the research literature that show the efficacy of character education in schools, not just classrooms. Large-scale reviews and meta-analyses that looked at dozens of different studies (for example, the 52 individual studies covering more than 225,000 students that made up the SAGE Journals meta-analysis) show that it has a positive effect on academic performance and behavior outcomes (Jones, Bouffard and colleagues SAGE Journals meta-analysis), and is associated with reduced suspensions and violence and improved self-control, respect, and honesty, even when controlling for demographic variables (SAGE Journals meta-analysis). This research is extremely telling, showing that character education has a positive effect on schools, not just classrooms, and academically and behaviorally, and even with limited resources. Schools that adopt a quality character education program will see positive gains across the board, in students of all backgrounds.
Since those gains are at least as large for minority students and low-income students as they are for the general student population, and longer programs showed greater effect sizes than shorter ones, (SAGE Journals meta-analysis), and individual studies on elementary, middle, and high schools show reductions in discipline referrals of up to 50% and marked increases in attendance for some schools, (ERIC, Perceived Impact of a Character Education Program), it’s safe to say that character education has a positive impact on students’ academic performance and behavior.
When you think about how this affects the staff and the students and the teachers you work with, you realize that this is an overwhelmingly positive effect for everyone involved, and a huge opportunity for you and your students to be the best. In schools with comprehensive character education programs, teachers spend less time on behavior and more time with students in the classroom, meaning more time spent on instruction. If a school’s culture is improved, staff morale and retention is increased, which is a huge factor in a school’s success. A school that builds character builds the conditions for everything else to succeed.
This is the ripple effect Growing Leaders is built around. One student who learns to lead herself influences a classroom. One classroom of self-led students changes a grade level. Multiply that across a building, and you have transformed the culture without writing a single new discipline policy.
What This Actually Means For Curriculum Directors
When it comes to curriculum directors that are tasked with finding or recommending a character education program for their students, this review of the research is crucial in making that decision. By replacing questions like, “Does this character education curriculum simply feel good?” with “Does this character education curriculum actually teach students a series of character-based skills that they can master year after year as self-led and disciplined leaders?” curriculum directors can ensure that they’re making the best decision for their students.
It is in this spirit that Growing Leaders has created the iLead program. Our character education curriculum provides students with the structure of self-contained tracks, namely iLead Elementary, iLead Middle School, and iLead High School. It gives students the opportunity to build the skills to be disciplined and effective leaders on an individual level. We believe that peer-led instruction is the most effective way to teach students the skills they’ll need to make ethical decisions, and we have both anecdotal and scientific evidence to back that up. We help K-12 students learn to be better leaders, which is why we offer character education curriculum.
Where This Goes Next
Character is not something students are taught in school and then displayed in their professional lives. It’s something they need to practice throughout their school careers and from early childhood through graduation. Just as leadership is an ongoing endeavor, so is character education, and it should be treated as such in the school setting.
In our next post we will discuss in depth what that could look like and what an effective character education curriculum and scope-and-sequence might look like in your K-12 school context.
Ready to bring a real character education curriculum into your K-12 building? Visit growingleaders.com to see how iLead helps you turn rows of passive learners into circles of courageous, values-driven leaders.
