Month: October 2017

Survey of Orthodox Jews: Sense of community getting stronger in Jewish schools

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A new survey of Modern Orthodox Jews in the United States provides interesting insights into the types of schools their children attend.

The research also highlights what Jewish parents think about the schools—institutions where the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture notes a renewed focus on citizenship and character education, especially on “Musar.”

The Nishma Research Profile of American Modern Orthodox Jews, released in late September, “involved a broad literature review, individual interviews, [and] survey development and testing by experienced researchers,” as well as “guidance by an advisory group comprised of people knowledgeable of the community, including rabbinic and lay leaders, sociologists, educators, and academics,” according to the report.

“This report presents findings based on responses from 3,903 individuals in the U.S. who identified themselves as ‘Modern Orthodox or Centrist Orthodox.’”

Questions touched on a wide variety of topics, from religious beliefs to women’s roles, to successes, opportunities, and challenges facing the Jewish community.

About 83 percent of respondents’ children in grades 1–12 attend an Orthodox Jewish day school, and about 75 percent of those are coeducational, rather than single gender, schools.

At the Orthodox Jewish day schools, “Jewish studies are seen as stronger than secular studies (70 percent fully agree that Jewish programs are strong vs. 61 percent for secular studies). Fewer agree that the schools do a good job of teaching middot (52 percent), tzniut (22 percent), or sex education (22 percent),” according to the report.

Parents of Jewish students segregated at schools by gender showed very similar results, though high schools were rated better for secular education, teaching critical thinking, and special education.

“Parents rate fully coed schools best overall, while single gender schools are rated best for Jewish studies and teaching tzniut,” Nishma Research reports.

Tzniut is the concept of modesty or privacy promoted by Orthodox Judaism, while middot refers to principles used to interpret biblical passages.

The Nishma report comes as the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture prepares to release the book, The Content of Their Character, which will feature a chapter by Prof. Jack Werthheimer on how character and citizenship are formed in Jewish schools.

In recent decades, one movement influential among Jewish movements in America, including Reform communities, is “Musar,” or “moral discipline.” In an essay for The Hedgehog Review, Geoffrey Claussen, an associate professor of religious studies at Elon University and former president of the Society of Jewish Ethics, argued that one major Musar proponent emphasizes “the honesty, humility, patience, and discipline that doing Musar requires,” and also “advises daily practice—focusing one’s attention on a given character trait every morning, engaging in self-analysis by writing in one’s journal every evening, and dedicating time for study and good deeds on a daily basis.”

Another scholar “adds to this sort of regimen by emphasizing the moral significance of traditional Jewish observance, involvement with the life of a community, and friendships that offer critical feedback,” Claussen wrote.

The intentional character formation offered in many Jewish schools draws on deep religious sources and history, and serves as an example of the type of community-centered character-education approach.

Timothy Hall on “Classical education: sharpening students’ humanity for the 21st century”

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What is classical education, and how is it distinct from other educational models?

Many educational models take the instrumentalist approach, which helps students achieve vocational goals. But from a practical standpoint, vocational goals have a limited scope.

I think back to my granddad, who told my father to work in the steel mill because “steel is forever.” It wasn’t; the steel mills are gone. My father told me to aspire to the paper mill; “paper is forever.” It wasn’t; paper mills are gone. Vocational goals are a means to an end, not the end.

Other educational models draw on the progressive approach, which focuses on developing good citizens in a democracy.

Yet that, too, is an insufficient end. Socrates, one of the greatest philosophers of Western tradition, was sentenced to death by a democratic Athens. He was convicted by good citizens, those who followed the customs, rules, and laws of their democracy. And he did not. And yet, who do we think was right in the conflict between “the best city” and “the best man”? So good citizenship is not enough either; it can be a good means, but not an end itself.

The classical approach differs from the previous two approaches. Rather than aiming for a mean, it educates for the humanity in each of us—an end in itself, not a means. In our humanity we can fail, but we can also triumph in the face of unsurmountable obstacles. In our humanity, we come to know and appreciate ourselves, and then appreciate the communities to which we are connected. Remember your Socrates: “Know thyself!” This admonition is the beginning of classical education.

But how can we go about doing this? Classical education continually asks the same essential six questions of Socrates:

  • What is virtue?
  • What is moderation?
  • What is justice?
  • What is courage?
  • What is good?
  • What is piety?

That is exciting stuff! And it is important stuff.

These are questions that students need to reflect on time and again. Each time they do, they will sharpen their humanity. It will change their lives; it will change your life, whether you teach in the classical approach, or are a parent of a classically educated student. And, its emphasis on cultivating our humanity can change our culture for the better.

Daniel Scoggin on “Character is a ‘Yes'”

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If we follow the Greek etymology of the word character we find “a distinctive mark impressed, engraved, or otherwise formed.” The Greek word kharakter actually refers to the creation of coins: an “engraved mark” and also “instrument for marking.” We derive the modern word “character” from this literal meaning: a deep, etched impression. In reference to human nature, we could say the etched face of the soul.

From the classical perspective, the permanence of character was first about the excellence of the hero. Character is staying power under assault, the ability to stand firm, even under the most challenging of external pressure. For the Greeks, this especially applied to the horror of war. An engraved soul does not run away in battle. One thinks of the larger-than-life Greek warriors described in Homer’s Iliad—Ajax, Diomedes, Hector, and, of course, Achilles—who hold their ground under relentless onslaught and risk. Homer describes staying power as the greatest gift of all—an unequivocal gift from the gods.

In The Republic, Plato extends this staying power, this soul imprint, to the city-state and his concept of the guardians, those carefully chosen from among the citizens who are devoted to the polis and who can apply clear reasoning and cleave to a principle under intense pressure.

As one of the founders of Great Hearts, Dr. John X. Evans, puts it, the hero is that “great-souled person to whom people entrust their security and hope.” A hero can face and bear loss with magnanimity. As Aristotle says, “the beauty of the soul shines out when a man bears with composure one heavy mischance after another, not because he does not feel them, but because he is a man of high and heroic temper.” The hero has staying power.

So while the classical concept of character is about resolve and sacrifice, it is anything but rote obedience. The concept involves a choice, and it is no accident that we trace our understanding of character in Western Civilization back to the democracy of Athens and to the stories loved by the first free cities. Controlled behavior cannot be moral behavior if it removes the element of judgment. Character is free and liberal and, while habits of virtue are essential, forging character is different than training behavior. The question of the West—depicted beautifully in David’s Death of Socrates—is what does the free person do when confronted with the conflict between power and truth, between compulsion and conscience?

Character does not involve just saying “no” but saying “yes” to a larger truth or beauty that encompasses and surrounds the self. Character is a yes. Character involves the moral autonomy of the individual to make free decisions on behalf of what he or she loves, to make private decisions when no one is looking, to defer desire for something they find ultimately compelling. Simply put, character is when creeds have become life convictions, when integrity becomes freedom.

From the perspective of schooling, all sorts of challenges and pitfalls arise here. How can we ever hope or help our students forge an internal conviction that stands up under external pressure? How does one foster moral autonomy?  How do we make the objective, subjective? What part can we, as public educators, have in something as dire and mysterious as the forging of a hero?

At Great Hearts, the culture of our academies has created the intellectual and moral conditions that seek to answer these questions, and to launch each young man or woman on a search to find his or her durable character.

 

 

Dan Scoggin on “Filling a school campus with purpose”

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Great Hearts is a non-profit charter school network serving 16,000 students in Arizona and Texas. Our 28 K-12 academies offer a classical program alongside robust extra-curricular programs, creating a transformative experience for our students.

We believe that the highest goal of education is for students to become good, intellectually and morally.

Having said that, it might be strange to learn that there is no “character curriculum” at Great Hearts. The character curriculum is the school itself.

This is true of every school, for better or worse. What kind of art is in the hallways? How do the kids talk to one another in the lunchroom and then in the classrooms? How do the teachers befriend each other and serve the kids?  How do we address struggle and suffering? How do we honor excellence? Is the culture of the school unified by a mission? The answers to these questions reveal the “hidden curriculum” of character in any school.

In a school the lack of a mission becomes a mission— the vacuum of time, space, and meaning is always being filled by something, often anything. If educators and school leaders don’t fill a school campus with intentional purpose it becomes filled with unintentional confusion and cultural chaos. There is no such thing as an innate, happy, peaceful state of rest for any school.

At Great Hearts we view our intentional purpose as a restoration of a way of forming the habits and the tastes of the young that was once the hallmark of producing free citizens of a republic. Far too often the liberal arts are mislabeled as something archaic, impractical, or exclusive. Classical education stands out in public education today because, as one of our valedictorians put it, others have sat down.

The essential question—what does it mean to be a human being?—is the rightful inheritance of every child to address afresh. As such, liberal education should be both free and freeing. We love being inclusive public charter schools and working to fulfill Mortimer Adler’s anti-elitist proclamation that the “best education for the best is the best education for all.” The classics are inclusive and utterly scalable, and we Americans make them exclusive or private at our peril.

We believe a unified, coherent liberal arts education has the best chance of forming students who are happy and virtuous. The liberal arts tradition of the West allows us to confidently use terms such as virtue and truth without turning to religious doctrine. An education that assumes the reality of philosophy and forming character—just as much as it believes in the reality of chemistry, geometry, and economics—can work for our generation and within public education. In fact, public education is the rightful domain of such an approach. Like Socrates teaching in the public square in Athens, we must humbly submit that there are better and worse answers, and right and wrong answers, to how to live well and to how to pursue justice.

Character involves saying “yes” to a larger truth or beauty that encompasses and surrounds the self.  Forging character involves the moral autonomy of the individual to make free decisions on behalf of what he or she loves, to make private decisions when no one is looking, to defer desire for something they find ultimately compelling. Simply put, character is when creeds have become life convictions, when integrity becomes freedom. As the ancient Athenian statesman Pericles described the virtues of a free democracy and its citizens as, “. . . knowing the secret of happiness to be freedom, and the secret of freedom a brave heart.”

In the spirit of Pericles we named our public charter organization Great Hearts. It is a reminder to us of our heritage of freedom. But it also is a reminder to us of what we want our students to have, and who we want our students to be, as we inspire our students to fulfill their calling and prepare for the adventure ahead.

 

Eva Moskowitz on “Why schools should teach moral character”

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Success Academy is well known for outstanding academic achievement: With 15,500 students, our network of 46 charter schools is the size of the seventh largest school district in New York State and had the highest percentages of students passing last year’s state math and reading exams. Last year, we received the prestigious Broad Prize for the “greatest academic performance and improvement while reducing achievement gaps among low-income students and students of color.” Four of our schools have earned National Blue Ribbons.

But we believe our students’ academic accomplishments are nothing if they do not also possess strong moral character. So in addition to teaching our scholars to be good readers, writers, mathematicians, and scientists, we believe they need to be people of high moral character who are self-reflective about their actions.

Teaching moral character scares many educators. That’s commonly because of a belief in relativism, an appropriate concern not to impose ideas by simple authority on a diverse student body. True, our school community is diverse. Our families, scholars, teachers, and staff do all not share the same values. And as educators we must be careful not to impose our own political or religious values on students. Yet I think we can all agree that schools can and should teach students honesty and kindness.

Ethics and good character are a part of our daily instruction. We do not have a character development curriculum because we don’t believe learning right from wrong is something that happens from 11:05–11:55 twice a week.  Rather, we have core values, and we teach them at the beginning of the year so that all new students know our north star—and we re-teach them throughout the year, since it’s easy to forget the what and the why.

At Success Academy, we mostly worry not about the kids, but the grownups. Ethics start with adults and filter to children. Respect for others and proper behavior are not just taught, but expected, modeled, and rewarded at Success Academy.

We spend much time on articulating and reinforcing what it means to be an ethical educator.  Our core beliefs include academic integrity, of course, but also center on respecting children and treating them with kindness and consistency.

We believe it is unethical to tell students reflexively they are doing a “great job” when in fact their work is poor. We believe it is unethical to pretend to valorize thinking but actually valorize procedures. We believe that, as educators, we must give students as much independence as possible, but not so much that their mistakes are fatal.

We expect our scholars to prize integrity and to make smart, ethical decisions. We know and fear the irreparable consequences that can result from one lapse in good judgment. But we also expect moral lapses and gaps. When we find them, we stop and address them with radical candor.

This has been one of the most important ingredients to our success. It is impossible to imagine our current academic excellence without this emphasis on high moral character.

 

“Robot apocalypse” could affect character education

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A series of reports by Education Week is highlighting how automation and a possible “robot apocalypse” could impact the way schools educate students for the future, and how the outcome of many of the moral dilemmas that await the next generation will depend on how well schools instill good character.

The education site suggests that by the time today’s sixth graders are in the workforce, robots will have likely replaced many of the working and middle class jobs available today. Top economists and technology experts offer a wide range of predictions for the future, from a full-blown robot revolution to a slow integration of new technologies in a variety of sectors, and now schools are grappling with how to prepare students for the uncertain.

“What skills will today’s students need? Will the jobs available now still be around in 2030? Should every kid learn to code? What about apprenticeships, career-and-technical education, and ‘lifelong learning?’” Education Week questions. “Just as importantly, how can schools prepare children to participate in the political, civic, and moral debates stirred up by technology-driven changes?”

Futurists like Martin Ford, author of Rise of the Robots, predict many routine jobs could soon be gone, such as paralegals, radiologists, line cooks, truck drivers, tax preparers, office assistants and others.

Such “predictions tend to overgeneralize from a breakthrough at one level of engineering to quote another level of sophistication,” wrote Mike Rose in The Hedgehog Review, and tend to ignore history showing that new technologies often “draw on existing knowledge and skills, even as it might alter them.”

Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Paul Osterman, who ran the state’s workforce training programs, told Education Week that people will likely adapt with technology. And while some jobs will be lost, people will create new opportunities and new occupations in ways similar to the country’s transition from an agricultural economy to an industrial economy a century ago.

Either way, most agree students will need new skills for an unpredictable future, and will likely need a foundation in math and science, as well as other, uniquely human abilities.

“To maintain their edge, workers would also need to focus on cultivating the human qualities that robots still lack, such as creativity, empathy and abstract thinking,” Education Week reports. “And because most jobs could constantly evolve, today’s students could eventually face a make-or-break question: Can you adapt?”

That question will guide the flourishing of students after they graduate, and the answer could rest with how well schools instill good character in the classroom.

“ … Consider how deeply robots, algorithms, and digital agents are being woven into important aspects of our lives, from loan applications to dating to criminal sentencing. Will tomorrow’s citizens be thoughtful and vigilant in deciding how much control they’re willing to give to technology? Will they be able to recognize and challenge automated decision-making systems that replicate existing racial, gender, and other biases?” Education Week questions. “For all the attention to technology, the answer may have more to do with our laws, policies, and values.”

Many believe it’s especially critical for educators to help students reflect on the wise use of technology as part of a broader character formation lesson. Such lessons require intention and planning beginning with resources about character, technology, and making decisions based on good sense.

230+ Islamic schools submit survey answers

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New research offers a look into the structure and culture of Islamic schools in America, adding to similar analysis by the University of Virginia’s Institute of Advanced Studies in Culture and others.

California Lutheran University School of Management professor Sabith Khan, and Shariq Siddiqui, executive director of the Association for Research on Nonprofit and Voluntary Action in Indianapolis, collaborated to survey more than 230 Islamic schools in the U.S., and interview over two dozen principals and board members, according to their recent editorial in the Ventura County Star.

They discovered that most of the Islamic schools resemble other religious schools, and focus about 10 to 25 percent of their curriculum on religious studies. All Muslim-American schools are nonprofits, which allows for tax benefits and legitimacy. Many Islamic schools are started through philanthropy and are later supported through fees or other means, Kahn and Siddiqui wrote in the Star.

They also looked at civic engagement.

According to Khan and Siddiqui:

One of our most counterintuitive findings was that Islamic schools have been instrumental in helping their students develop a greater sense of civic awareness and, hence, become better citizens.

Islamic schools help produce community leaders. They have produced a bulk of the civic leaders in the Muslim-American community. This should not come as a surprise, given that Muslim institutions in the U.S. generally encourage their members to be active members of the local, national, and international civil society.

This messaging is reinforced in many ways, including through service-learning activities, interaction with local communities and the formation of education boards. Amaney Jamal with Princeton University has shown that participation in mosque activities is directly correlated with greater political and civic engagement. This also ties in with work by Robert Wuthnow of Princeton and Robert Putnam of Harvard University showing that social capital is higher among those who participate in religious institutions than among those who don’t.

Boston University Professor Charles L. Glenn and several graduate students conducted similar interviews with officials, students, staff and parents, and observed the daily practices at Islamic schools at as part of a study designed by James Davison Hunter, University of Virginia sociologist and founder of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture.

Glenn pointed out in the April 2016 article in First Things, “America’s Most Influential Journal of Religion and Public Life,” that the shared value system and expectations among those in Islamic schools provides the atmosphere for deeper conversations about character, morality, faith, and other topics typically avoided in public schools.

“The willingness of teachers to engage in discussion of issues of faith and conduct makes a strong impression on their students. ‘Basically the thing [the Islamic-studies teacher] did is that he is so approachable and he does not talk about the textbook Islam,’ one student told us. ‘He’ll talk about real-life Islam, like he’s always giving us real-life examples, real-life situations. He makes us do these plays in class where one of us is a non-Muslim and the other is a Muslim, and so the non-Muslim asks all the questions that a kid ever wants to ask but is too afraid to.’ This constitutes a form of mentoring that the students find important,” Glenn wrote.

Glenn continued:

These teenagers experience something that has been observed in other religious schools as well. The shared worldview of a faith-based school provides a margin of safety for discussions on a deeper level than is often possible in a public school where such a common perspective does not exist. David Campbell, a sociologist of religion, has noted that in religious schools “an ethos of trust opens space for teachers to feel comfortable introducing contentious issues into their lessons and allowing debate and discussion of those issues among the students.” This contrasts with the climate of American public schooling as described by sociologist Anthony Bryk et al. in Catholic Schools and the Common Good (1993, 2009): “Mirroring the spiritual vacuum at the heart of contemporary American society, schools now enculturate this emptiness in our children . . . The problems of contemporary schooling are broader than the ineffective use of instrumental authority. At base is an absence of moral authority.” The Islamic secondary schools that we visited unquestionably possess moral authority, which, paradoxically, is why they allow students more intellectual freedom.

The Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture hosted Glenn for a public panel titled “Islamic Schools in America: Questions of Faith, Assimilation, and Character” at the University of Virginia’s Watson Manor on October 17, 2017.

The event, moderated by The Hedgehog Review editor Jay Tolson, featured Glenn; Boston College political science professor Peter Skerry; Sufia Azmat, executive director of the Council of Islamic Schools in North America; and Safaa Zarzour, attorney and former principal at a large Islamic school.

Social-emotional learning and achievement at Valor

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Valor Collegiate Academies in Tennessee is crediting a sharp focus on social and emotional learning (SEL) for students’ astonishing academic success, which propelled its Tennessee schools to the top 1 percent of all middle schools in the state in its first year.

The success at Valor not only sheds light on the value of social-emotional learning, but also provides an opportunity to connect those lessons with broader discussions about good character and morals.

The Charter School Growth Fund, which invested $1.5 million for Valor’s first two schools launched in 2013, featured the schools in a recent “CSGF Portfolio Spotlight” on the organization’s website.

Todd Dickson, CEO of Valor Collegiate Academies, explained that the concept for the charter school was inspired by his work at a high-performing charter school in California that focused heavily on academics, and his twin brother Daren’s time helping children in social services with social and emotional skills.

“Students at Valor spend more time on their social and emotional growth than most traditional students. We first work on self-awareness and self-management to help them develop a strong sense of who they are. Then, we work on social awareness and social management to help them develop positive relationships with others. We believe that doing both things well helps develop healthy kids and communities,” Dickson said.

“We also hear from students that they feel safe here and that they have trusting relationships with peers and adults in the building. This has been beneficial in an academic setting; scholars are more willing to take academic risks. They listen to other people’s opinions and accept a diversity of perspectives.”

Valor schools use “The Valor Compass” to guide student growth and help them focus on four primary objectives: Sharp Minds, Noble Purpose, Big Hearts, and Aligned Actions.

“Mentor time, Expeditions, and academic courses all incorporate explicit and experiential experiences to help scholars develop sharp minds, big hearts, noble purpose, and aligned actions,” according to the Valor website. “Valor scholars develop character strengths such as kindness, determination, curiosity, gratitude, and integrity within a supportive community.”

Ryan Olson, director of the Institute for Advanced Studies on Culture at the University of Virginia, points out in “Character Education” that an SEL researcher argued that “the orientation of social-emotional learning toward action and skill” in SEL programs can complement the “concern for volition and intention often found in character and moral education programs.”

Adding curriculum resources on why students should do and be good—reasons outside oneself and for the benefit of others and a community—improves the stickiness of character formation, and getting students to go deeper by working on developing good sense when there is conflict between the social and emotional skills they’re learning, is an excellent next step, Olson argues.

The UK’s Jubilee Centre offers a worksheet to assist teachers to help students think about the kind of person and type of life they want to pursue.

On bullying and learning: A Girl Scout’s “buddy bench”

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MUSCATINE, Iowa – Iowa Girl Scout Nicole Frisbie knows what it’s like to face bullies, and she doesn’t want young students to face the harassment alone. She decided to do something about it, to combat bullying with kindness. And when it comes to character formation, kindness is essential.

The 17-year-old recently received the Girls Scouts’ highest honor, the Gold Award, for her work to create a “buddy bench” at her former grade school, McKinley Elementary, that’s already making a positive impact.

According to the Muscatine Journal:

Frisbie’s award-winning project involved the creation of a “buddy bench”—a space where students who are feeling bullied or left out can go to sit on the playground that alerts teachers or other students that they need help or would like companionship. Frisbie’s project involved not only the construction of the bench at her grade school alma mater, McKinley, but a training program for students and administrators regarding use of the bench and its impact, backed up by various studies in education and social science.

“It felt awesome to be a part of this and earn this award, but it’s an even more amazing feeling to know that my work is going to help kids from being bullied,” Frisbie told the news site. “I went to school at McKinley and I was bullied and it was terrible. My goal was to help the school and other kids so they don’t have to go through what I did.”

The buddy bench, she said, has already improved learning in measurable ways in its first year.

“The number of disciplinary reports have gone down and attendance has gone up,” Frisbie said. “The first is pretty explanatory, but the second—kids who are being bullied sometimes won’t want to be in school and will try to avoid it if they can.”

“I had a parent tell me that her son used it and it helped him and that was really cool,” she said. “When you do a project like this you want it to work, but you’re not really sure if it will. You hope it will. And when it does, especially a project like this, it feels really good.”

Many believe the epidemic of bullying in schools is tied closely to the disappearance of character education, which helps students develop important traits like empathy, compassion, and kindness without regard to the social costs.

“It is easy to affirm a general idea of kindness, but quite another to believe that other people are intrinsically worth being treated kindly, and that because of that belief, one has an obligation to actually treat them kindly,” James Davison Hunter, founder of University of Virginia’s Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, wrote in his book The Tragedy of Moral Education in America.

“The first is a much more flexible and convenient morality than the second, and it is one that is easier to ignore when the cost of holding to it rises.”

Lessons on character would help students identify classmates in trouble, even without the buddy bench. But while efforts to teach good character are organized, Frisbie’s project can be an effective way to address a lack of kindness. For instance, elementary-school educators could try a lesson on the virtue of kindness by asking students to become “secret agents of kindness.”

Frisbie’s own character provided the fortitude to persevere through the two-year project while balancing many other demands as a top student at Muscatine High School, where she participates in dance, color guard, and band, the Journal reports.

She raised $700 to buy the bench, as well as other funds for the frame and training materials, which the teen collected through bake sales, by soliciting donations, and other fundraising efforts.

Maura Warner, spokeswoman for Girls Scouts of Eastern Iowa and Western Illinois, said the Gold Award is an earned achievement and that it requires a lot of time, effort, and determination to bring a meaningful service project to life.

It’s an experience that builds character.

“She’s the first girl in about five years to win the honor from Muscatine,” Warner said. “It’s a really prestigious award. There’s a lot of time put into it. You have to create and manage a project and get it done successfully. It’s not about winning it; it’s about earning it.”

Teaching students discipline, respect, and understanding through music

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HUMBLE, Texas – Park Lakes Elementary School teacher Stephanie Tiner is using music to teach students important qualities like discipline, respect, and understanding—lessons that can be a foundation for deeper conversations about good character.

Tiner secured a $3,700 grant from the Humble Independent School District Education Foundation this school year to purchase drums, bongos, maracas, and numerous other percussion instruments she plans to use to introduce students to “D.R.U.M.”

The acronym stands for Discipline, Respect, and Unity through Music, and it’s the title of a book authored by veteran Humble music teacher Jim Solomon about the power of music to bring people together, the Houston Chronicle reports.

Tiner told the news site that Park Lakes serves a large population of bilingual students, some with limited English, and her music class brings those students together with their traditional classmates.

Unlike schools that keep students segregated by their English abilities, Park Lakes blends the students in non-core classes to help them work together and learn about their racial differences and language barriers.

“I really wanted to try and figure out a way to use music to really tackle those issues that I kind of feel our country is even having a hard time with,” Tiner told the Chronicle. “Getting along with people who don’t look like you or sound like you through music is a wonderful way of doing that.”

Tiner said that although she just recently received the new instruments, they’ve helped to engage students in a collaborative effort to carry a rhythm and to learn to share the various drums, bongos, and lummi sticks on a rotating basis.

“It would help them to have to work together, to have to listen, to be disciplined, to treat each other with respect,” she said. “When you try to create music with people you are not listening to or that you don’t get along with, it’s noise, and I tell them all the time, ‘This isn’t noise class—this is music class.’”

And students have responded well to infusing lessons on character with the music.

“Having a more character education driven classroom in general around this has made a big difference,” Tiner said. “They are constantly trying to work together to earn points to move onto the next step.”

Tiner’s music-driven character lessons are an excellent way to engaging students in more in-depth conversations about the virtues of good character.

The experience of cultivating habits of respect, attentiveness, and humility in schools through music and other subjects should lead to deeper conversations about why we should show respect and listen attentively when it’s easier to insist on our own perspective and disregard others’ opinions and feelings. Incorporating character virtues into music classes (example here) will make the character lessons explicit.

©2017 Advanced Studies in Culture

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