Month: April 2018

MA students lobby lawmakers to improve civics education with new graduation requirement

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Massachusetts high schoolers Mike Brodo and Zev Dickstein may not see eye-to-eye on politics, but they both agree on one thing: state lawmakers should pass a bill to promote civics education, including a requirement for a student-led civics project.

“I think that the political environment being highly polarized contributes to this indifference and ignorance of politics you see in the media, and there’s always two sides going at it and no one talking about the state issues, local issues, how do we collaborate and work together face-to-face,” Brodo, a senior at Xaverian Brothers High School and chairman of Massachusetts Teenage Republicans, told South Coast Today “It’s always just divisiveness and tweets, and none of that’s going to get anyone interested.”

Brodo trekked to Beacon Hill, the site of the Massachusetts Legislature in early April to advocate for Senate Bill 2375 alongside Dickstein, vice chairman of the Massachusetts High School Democrats. The legislation, which cleared the Senate in March and is now in the state House, would enhance the state’s civics education curriculum requirements and mandate that students complete a civics project for graduation.

“Civics education will allow student to decide whether they want to get involved in politics and be active,” Dickstein said. “I’m not saying that everyone has to be involved, but everybody needs to know enough about politics so that they can decide if they’d like to get involved.

“This bill will ensure that all students in public school districts will have the support they need to develop civic skills and knowledge necessary to be informed and voting citizens of the commonwealth of Massachusetts and the country.”

The Massachusetts bill is sponsored by Rep. Linda Dean Campbell, who urged students to “do a really hard sell on the projects component of this legislation,” South Coast Today reports.

This effort is consistent with  the findings of sociologist James Davison Hunter at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture. He reports findings from James Coleman that “calls for the creation of ‘new environments’ in which young people could perform public service and other important civic roles.” The heart of his synthesis “specifies three decisive components of virtuous character: moral knowing, moral feeling, and moral action.” The goal of this program is to correctly incorporate these aspects into the daily education experience of students.

“This is what’s going to make it real,” Rep. Linda Dean Campbell said.  “When we talk to lower-income districts in the commonwealth of Massachusetts, this is what the teachers told us: ‘Make it real. It’s real for us now, we have issues that we’re concerned about now. Allow us to get that experience, hands-on experience, as to how to make politics work for us.”

Teachers and principals working to strengthen moral and citizenship education in their schools will find helpful information and strategies at the UK’s Jubilee Centre. In the Jubilee Centre’s own words, the following paragraph illustrates how the centre views its work:  “The Jubilee Centre is a pioneering interdisciplinary research centre on character, virtues and values in the interest of human flourishing.  The Centre is a leading informant on policy and practice and through its extensive range of projects contributes to a renewal of character virtues in both individuals and societies.”

Of particular note to educators is the Jubilee Centre’s document, “A Framework for Character Education in Schools” which provides an excellent description of virtue definitions and the building blocks of character and provides a list of teaching resources for teacher use.

“King High Remembers” brings high schoolers together with veterans for intimate interviews

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A “King High Remembers” project launched at the California school in the 2000-2001 school year is starting to come full circle.

In March, hundreds of folks flooded into the Riverside school for the 18th annual event, where high school juniors dressed to impress as they interviewed military veterans, who brought along photos, medals and other memorabilia to share with the next generation, The Press-Enterprise.

The intent is to help connect history for students while preserving the memories of veterans to honor their service.

This year was the first year Sgt. Nick Cady shared his experiences from six deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan – a record of service inspired in part by his time interviewing veterans as a student at the first annual event.

Cady discussed the reality of fear during war zone firefights, and his motivations for persevering through seemingly impossible situations. “Not a single veteran or service member can say they’re not scared to die,” Cady told students. “But you become calloused and numbed to the fact that you’re going to get shot at and you may not live.”

Student Logan Diaz, 16, wanted to know what inspired Cady to press on as his fellow soldiers sacrificed their lives in battle.

“There’s a lot of evil in the world,” he said. “Attacks kept happening in the U.K. or stateside, or your friends got hit, and I wanted to do something.”

These concrete stories, personally embodied by these veterans, provides concrete instruction in the nature of the good. The Institute of Advanced Studies in Culture found, “The importance of modeling the good is especially important in the public schools because explicit moral teaching is (or is perceived to be) fraught with disagreement, controversy, or legal challenges” This approach cut through all these fears and obstacles.

King history teacher John Corona said he started the program 18 years ago to celebrate heroes in the community who deserve recognition, though many don’t court attention. Last month, nearly 300 people participated in multiple interview rooms. Since the program began, nearly 1,000 veterans have shared their stories.

Riverside Unified School District board president Patricia Lock-Dawson told participants in this year’s event that she hopes the interviews reignite a sense of service that was more common in past generations, The Press-Enterprise reports.

“Today, our students get to hear what actually goes into that phrase, ‘serving your country,’” she said. “We get a tangible glimpse into history through your experience, and we get to say ‘thank you for your service’ and really know what that means.”

Teachers and principals working to strengthen moral and citizenship formation in their students can find information and strategies at the UK’s Jubilee Centre. In the Jubilee Centre’s own words, the following paragraph illustrates how they view their work:  “The Jubilee Centre is a pioneering interdisciplinary research centre on character, virtues and values in the interest of human flourishing.  The Centre is a leading informant on policy and practice and through its extensive range of projects contributes to a renewal of character virtues in both individuals and societies.”

U.S. Navy renews focus on character development

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The U.S. Navy is updating its leadership programs at the Naval War College with a keen focus on character and competence which may have been prompted after a series of embarrassing ship collisions last year.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson announced the changes at the Rhode Island school in early April, when he announced the formation of a new College of Leadership and Ethics to weave lessons on character, self-awareness, leadership and ethics into the curriculum, according to U.S. Naval Institute News.

Trainees at the College of Leadership and Ethics will receive 10 days of devoted class time in each core class, as well as additional military faculty to boost the role of what was formally the Navy Leadership and Ethics Center.

Richardson told the news site the Navy is also working to ensure sailors, both subordinates and those in leadership, get feedback from others about their performance and character development through the service’s assessment system.

“We’re in the final stages of a revision to our FITREPS (officer fitness reports) system, our evaluation system. So in an ideal closed-loop environment you would say at the beginning, this is what we value, this is what we think is important. We’re going to teach you those things (through schools, on-the-job training and self-learning). So that’s how we move you along this road in competence and character,” Richardson said.

Researchers at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture believe that there are five ways that “thick” moral communities can best be formed.  They identify the following in the Institute’s latest publication, The Content of Their Character—1) authoritative sources, 2) formal instruction, 3) informal “catching,” 4) routine practices, and 5) surrounding social support—one might want to add evaluation. You become what you measure. Here the Navy is adding character to their FITREP evaluations and thereby highlighting the Navy’s aspiration of a “good person.” This steps makes character real and an essential part of the school’s culture.

The Institute for Advanced Studies’ latest book, The Content of Their Character provides findings of the Institute’s research into ten sectors of K-12 high school across America regarding moral and citizenship formation of high school students.  The sectors studied were as follows:  urban public high schools, rural public high schools, charters, evangelical schools, Catholic schools, Jewish and Muslim schools, prestigious independent schools, alternative pedagogy schools and homeschooling.

Admiral Richardson said two fatal ship collisions with commercial vessels last year did not prompt the changes, but did provide examples of why leadership and ethics are important.

“When you think about where our commanding officers and leaders fall short, there’s just been too many instances where those shortcomings have had to do with ethical types of issues, in addition to the competence thing. So it’s clearly an area where we needed to make sure we were emphasizing,” he said.

“Perhaps the ultimate expression of trust and confidence is to give that commanding officer that ship and that crew and expect them to go over the horizon on their own and come back stronger than when they left in every respect, both from a warfighting competence standpoint but also I want them to bring our teams back stronger in character,” Richardson continued. “And so there was certainly an element of the [post-collision] investigations that said, hey, we need to really make sure that in each of our communities – and this one focused on the surface community – that our careers, our education, our career path is really focused on developing competent, confident commanding officers with the competence of character.”

Teachers and principals wanting to strengthen moral and citizenship formation in their students will find information and strategies to do so at the UK’s Jubilee Centre.

Benchmark charter school focuses students on gratitude, service, and patriotism

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Students at Benchmark School in Phoenix seem to stand out, in a good way.

“Everyone can tell a Benchmark student,” Carole Challoner, one of the public charter school’s founders, told the American Thinker. “Our students are kind, they are respectful, they are caring, and they love their country.”

Challoner started the school with fellow teacher Barbara Darroch, investing their own money to buy the land and buildings, to develop Benchmark with a clear vision of what they wanted to do differently than other schools. Both Challoner and Darroch grew up overseas, with Challoner’s father in the U.S. Air Force and Darroch’s in the oil business, and their childhood experiences shaped how they approach the classroom.

Researchers at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture found that the willingness to “be different” is an important feature of creating a “thick” moral culture in a school. In The Content of Their Character they wrote, “All of the charter schools in this sample saw themselves as different from the local public schools in culture and a focus on academic achievement…. To this end, they deliberately constructed their notions of the ‘good person’ as countercultural to their perception of a public school’s.” This willingness to embrace a countercultural stance served to enhance the moral ethos of the school.

The Institute for Advanced Studies’ latest book, The Content of Their Character, provides findings of the Institute’s research into ten sectors of K-12 high school across America regarding moral and citizenship formation of high school students.  The sectors studied were as follows:  urban public high schools, rural public high schools, charters, evangelical schools, Catholic schools, Jewish and Muslim schools, prestigious independent schools, alternative pedagogy schools and homeschooling.

“We know how lucky our students are to have been born in this wonderful country, and it is our responsibility to make sure they never forget that,” Challoner said.

Throughout the school year, various school events focus on inspiring students with opportunities for gratitude, service and patriotism – experiences that reinforce daily classroom lessons about the meaning of the Pledge of Allegiance, protecting the Constitution, the country’s founding fathers, and how citizenship and character revolve around helping others.

Students take turns leading the school in the daily Pledge, collect supplies for deployed military troops, honor veterans with essays and patriotic performances, and visit the National Memorial Cemetery to lay wreaths on graves without them.

Classrooms adopt military families during Christmas to help with presents and food, students compete in essay contests for Veterans Day and Memorial Day, and participate in several special events throughout the year. One event honors those who died in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks by hoisting two flags in remembrance. The flags are given to two students at the end of the year that exemplify good character and citizenship.

In another special event, the school hosts a naturalization ceremony for new citizens, who take an Oath of Allegiance and speak with students about why they wanted to become Americans. The yearly tradition has featured folks from Venezuela, Bosnia, and African countries, according to the American Thinker.

The intense focus on character and citizenship has led to tremendous academic success, Challoner said, with scores twice the state average in some subjects.

Teachers and principals wanting to strengthen moral and citizenship formation in their students can find information and strategies at the UK’s Jubilee Centre.

‘Most patriotic school in America’ cultivates a culture of service to God and country

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“Academics at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture make a distinction between “thick” and “thin” cultures of moral endowments. “Thin” tend to be generic and abstract, around which there is little disagreement. In contrast, “thick” moral cultures are concrete, bounded in traditions, and the lived experiences of particular communities. This is best illustrated by observing a thick moral community such as Staten Island’s St. Adalbert School.

Principal Diane Hesterhagen proudly describes St. Adalbert as “the most patriotic school in America,” and for good reason.

From the moment students walk into the school building in Elm Park, they’re immersed in a culture that centers squarely on service to God and country, with messages and activities that help students put those concepts into action on a daily basis, Silive.

“We include awareness of veterans’ issues into daily life, not just one or two days a year. It’s every day here,” Hesterhagen said.

Pride in America and service to others is “in these kids’ blood,” she said. “We form them in their faith and cultivate a sense of patriotism and citizenship.”

The school itself is filled with reminders – banners proclaiming “Stars and Stripes Forever,” “United We Stand” and “God Bless America” line the hallways, alongside displays honoring the men and women who sacrificed their lives in the U.S. military.

One display pays special tribute to Father Vincent Capodanno, a U.S. Navy chaplain and Medal of Honor recipient who lived near the school and was killed in Vietnam in 1967. Another bulletin board highlights U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Michael Ollis, a New Dorp resident who died shielding another soldier from a suicide bomber in Afghanistan in 2013.

The message “St. Adalbert salutes our veterans” and an American flag is printed on the front of all student uniforms. On the back the shirts read “Land of the free because of the brave.”

“It’s important for the kids to know that war is not always like the way it’s portrayed in movies,” Hesterhagen said. “Everyone doesn’t always come home, and sad things happen.”

Student projects involve a “white table ceremony” to honor military service members missing in action or captured as prisoners of war. St. Adalbert’s roughly 220 students also take fieldtrips to a memorial at the Manor Road Armory to place American flags on the gravesites of area veterans.

Local veterans also play an important role, visiting students in the classroom and for special events, including an ice cream social in May to kick off the Memorial Day weekend. The focus on service extends to police, as well, with an annual Police Day that allows students to learn about safety over lunch with officers.

This is what a “thick” moral community looks like.

Teachers and principals intent on strengthening moral and character formation of students in their school will find information and support at the UK’s Jubilee Centre.

Ohio students focus on serving others through volunteer work, service-related careers

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Researchers at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture state in The Content of Their Character that there are five ways that “thick” moral communities are formed: 1) authoritative sources, 2) formal instruction, 3) informal “catching,” 4) routine practices, and 5) surrounding social support. The example of Monreville, Ohio high schoolers involvement with community service is an example of informal catching and routine practices. This is how “thick” moral communities are formed.

Monroeville, Ohio high schoolers are expected to perform at least 40 hours of community service to graduate, but school officials are hoping the requirement sparks a passion for service that will inspire students long after they receive their diplomas.

For many Monroeville students like freshman Isaiah Scheid, who volunteers to paint and do other tasks at a small church near his house, helping others is a way of life. “I grew up around service. I grew up doing the little things,” he told the Norwalk Reflector. “I want to help. I want to give back more than what’s required to.”

Monroeville Local Schools officials recently offered additional opportunities for student service projects and highlighted service related occupations as part of a service learning fair coordinated with nearly 20 local businesses and organizations.

The event, which took place in early April, was organized by Jen Meyer, director of student activities, along with high school secretary Kelly Poths. The intent, Meyer said, is to urge students to consider service “beyond these four walls and how it will impact the community they live in.”

“They truly enjoy what they do,” Meyer said of student volunteers. “I think that’s why we have such great kids here.”

The fair featured keynote speaker V. Jane Rosser, director of Bowling Green State University’s Center of Community & Civic Engagement, who commended students for their work in the community.

According to the Reflector:

Rosser challenged the students to consider where volunteering can lead them, discover what they’re passionate about and open their minds on “what service looks like.” She said many people only think about “direct service” — such as volunteering at pantries or doing construction — but there are careers such as being a firefighter, police officer or in the military that focus on service and having an impact on one’s community.”  

Other speakers, like Monroeville athletic boosters president Jackie Schafer and Norwalk Safety-Service Director Dan Wendt, emphasized the rewards of serving others. “It makes you feel good and you’re helping someone,” Schafer said.

Students, meanwhile, seem to be getting the message. Eighth-grader Jayla Lepley told the Reflector 40 hours of community service needed to graduate doesn’t seem like a lot “because there are so many opportunities in the community.”

And in the end, Lepley pointed out, serving others “makes you a selfless person.”

Teachers and principals wanting to strengthen moral and character education in their school will find helpful information and strategies at the UK’s Jubilee Centre.

IL school’s ‘Wall of Honor’ highlights military veterans serving the community

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Officials at Danville, Illinois’ Kenneth D. Bailey Academy want students to look up to military veterans, literally.

The school is soliciting nominations of veterans who live in Vermilion County to induct into the academy’s “Wall of Honor,” an initiative launched by Principal Tracy Cherry in 2016 to recognize role models who have served both their community and their country with honor, the Commercial-News reports.

“It’s part of our mission and our vision,” Cherry said. “It’s a way to support people in our community who have given back. “We usually try to honor one to three veterans each year.”

Honored veterans were announced during an all-school assembly at Bailey Academy, and their names were included in a Salute to Veterans Concert at Danville High School, as well. School officials will hang a plaque with the honoree’s picture and information on the Wall of Honor in the school hallway, and those veterans will also receive a smaller plaque to take home, according to the news site.

The Wall of Honor sits opposite a mural of Kenneth D. Bailey, the school’s namesake and a Danville native who received the Congressional Medal of Honor for his heroism as a U.S. Marine serving in the Pacific Theatre during World War II. Bailey was gunned down during a patrol mission in 1942, though his heroics on the battlefield are well documented.

Bailey Academy students “see the veterans’ pictures and their stories on the wall as they pass by, and they know it’s something they can aspire to in their life, too,” Cherry said. “It’s important for us to recognize people in our community while they are still with us because sometimes they don’t get recognized until after it’s too late.”

The Wall of Honor nominations are open to both men and women from all branches of military service who continued to serve in their community as civilians. A committee of four community members and three Bailey Academy staff review nominations, as well as nominations from previous years, to select inductees.

“The committee enjoys the process every year,” Cherry said. “We’ve always had a decent number of applications.”

What makes this program so authentic is that it is rooted in the life of a local hero and the School’s namesake. This program further illustrates the findings of Institute of Advanced Studies in Culture researchers in the recently published book, The Content of Their Character regarding their findings about rural schools which were studied. They found that three spheres of moral obligation were characteristic of these schools. First is an appreciation of immigration; second is religious responsibility, and third is the value of military service. The study of the rural high schools showed that in these schools that the students were not pressured to join or consider the military, rather “there was simply a clear expectation that people respect and honor those serving, those who had served, and those students thinking about joining.”

Teachers and principals interested in strengthening character, moral and citizenship formation at their school will find information and strategies at the UK’s The Jubilee Centre.

 

TN students step up with ‘amazing display of youthful pride’ in the USA

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Over 2,000 students recently put on an “amazing display of youthful pride” in America at an Equine Education Day event in Nashville, Tennessee when a microphone malfunctioned during the National Anthem.

Jerry Harris, founder of the group What a Horse, told WTVC the first-ever “Equine Education Day” in mid-March was a big draw for students from across the state and beyond to learn about horses.

“It was a field trip for students from kindergarten through eighth grade with kids from all over Tennessee and even Kentucky,” he said. “There was over 2,000 kids.”

And while students learned a lot about maintaining and training horses, Harris said a problem at the start of the event was an eye-opener for him, as well.

WTVC reports:

Harris says during the opening ceremonies, Walking Horse trainer Herbert Derickson started to sing the National Anthem when the wireless microphone experienced a technical problem.

Instead of silence filling the arena, Harris says he was moved when all of the kids took over for Derickson and demonstrated an “amazing display of youthful pride.”

The incident followed local controversy surrounding students at Antioch High School who were caught on video tearing down an American flag during a student walkout in March.

The walkout was allegedly aimed at honoring 17 people killed in a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida in February, but videos posted to Facebook captured students in brawls and tearing down the American flag after ditching class, WSMV reports.

Harris said those types of incidents of students trashing the flag make the patriotic display at the Equine Education Day all the more significant.

“Especially when you see some kids disrespecting the flag,” he said, “it was just something special to witness those kids.”

Over the course of the past year, the flag, monuments, and guns have become symbolic markers in the wider culture wars. Dr. Ryan Olson, executive director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, wrote an op-ed following the neo-Nazi violence in Charlottesville about the difference between weather and climate. He wrote, “Weather is variable and passing. Climate change is slower, largely invisible, and eventually far more determinative…. If politics is downstream from culture, then political events can only be grasped against this wider cultural horizon.” The invisible and deeper shared culture of these students was on display in their response to the technical problems during the singing of the National Anthem.

Teachers and students interested in knowing more about moral, character and citizenship education can find information and strategies at the UK’s Jubilee Centre.

AL football champ launches campaign to change bullying school culture

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Former University of Alabama lineman Bradley Bozeman is tired of talking about bullying. He’s determined to do something about it.

Bozeman played an important role in Alabama’s national championship a few months ago, and he’s now training during the off season in anticipation of the NFL draft, but he’s also taking some time to launch a new campaign to speak with students across Alabama about how their actions impact others.

The effort started when ESPN radio host Rachel Baribeau visited the university to speak with Bozeman and his teammates about character, and Baribeau asked Bozeman to make a video for a young girl who was bullied in her school. Instead, Bozeman made the hour trip from Birmingham to Pell City to speak at the girl’s school, an experience he “fell in love with,” he said.

“I don’t want to be just a ‘talk about it and not do anything about it,’” Bozeman told the news site. “That’s why I went ahead and started a campaign. I’ve been jumping on it, trying to go different places. I think a lot of our problem is people say, ‘Oh, that’s bad,’ but what are you actually doing about it?”

Bozeman isn’t as high-profile as other celebrities who have spoken out about bullying, but he’s well-known in Alabama, where he’s working to speak at three schools per week, with the goal of reaching 20-25 schools in April. The 6-5, 305-pound blocker doesn’t have a prepared speech, but rather speaks from his own experiences with bullying as a big clumsy kid growing up.

A chronic challenge in moral education is one of authority. In the State of Alabama few individuals have more moral authority and persuasive influence than a University of Alabama national champion 300-pound football player. In addition to the size of his person and statue of his fame, Bozeman is speaking from his own experience. James Hunter of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture observes, “Experience was always a precursor to the possession of character and practical wisdom, for it schools the individual in the range of circumstances within which the virtues would find expression.”

“No. 1 is trying to get them to understand that bullying is a huge problem,” Bozeman said. “Four thousand kids a year commit suicide because of depression, bullying and so on and so forth. The impact that you can have on somebody’s life just by being kind to them or the other way by being a bully … that’s my main point of it.”

Ultimately, Bozeman said he’s hoping to make an impact that will help change the culture in schools, a mission he intends to continue once he reaches the NFL.

“It’s just something that’s really heavy on my heart. This is something that I really think is a big thing in our schools,” Bozeman said. “It starts with kids. Our future is our kids and the youth of America right now. What if we could change the mindset from being all about me? There’s no respect anymore. … I think if we can affect kids in a positive matter and give them the things that some kids don’t know. They just do it because they think it’s funny or it’ll impress their friends.”

“But let’s give them the knowledge and the tools to be able to change the strain we have going.”

Teachers and principals wanting information and strategies for strengthening moral formation work in their school can go to the UK’s The Jubilee Centre.

 

New narrative

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In order to combat the narrative the world presents to our students of who they are as people, from day one we present a new narrative. After spending the last several years working in different classrooms at Cornerstone Prep Lester in Binghampton, Memphis, we began co-teaching third grade this year with a focus on presenting this new narrative to our students. We narrate who each student is so he or she becomes that person. We also teach students the skills to follow the narrative we present. To the student who struggles with lying, we tell him he is not a liar, and give him opportunities to tell the truth. To the student who doesn’t complete her homework, we tell her she is someone who is prepared for each day with homework complete. We call the discouraged, courageous, and give her opportunities to be brave. We call the lazy, hardworking, and tell him how a hard working student acts. We call the angry, kind, and give him tools for anger management, as well as the words of kindness to pass along to his classmates. Our students need someone to believe in who they can be before they can move in the direction. We paint a picture of that future for them, and then give them the tools to move in that direction. We fight against the narrative of the world with a new narrative.

James came to us this year consistently struggling with emotional breakdowns and outbursts. He was self-aware of experiencing various intense emotions. He would speak phrases like “I’m irritated! I’m irritated!” while tearing at his clothes, ripping off his shoes, slamming his hands down on his desk, or collapsing in the hallway. James would sometimes come into school already emotionally charged or something would trigger him part way through the day. His classmates who had travelled through previous grades with James were never surprised by his breakdowns and outbursts.

We immediately went to work presenting a new narrative of who James was as a person. Everything we spoke to James had the same vein of truth in it – you can control yourself, and here are the tools. This was the narrative we wanted James to move toward, and we believed in him.

“James, you are not controlled by your irritation. You are the boss of your irritation. You are irritated, so use these words to tell us and use these strategies to calm down.”

“You are not someone who slams their desk. You are resilient when you get frustrated. You keep your head up. You work despite the frustration.”

We cannot even begin to describe the growth in this student. James still has meltdowns, but with less and less frequency. Students need adults to paint a new narrative of their future, while equipping them with the tools to move toward that future. We know what we believe as adults is displayed in our words and actions, and we want our students to emulate our good beliefs about them.

©2017 Advanced Studies in Culture

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