Month: May 2018

San Jose High School students recently got a first-hand look at what it’s like to become an American citizen when their principal took the Oath of Allegiance during a ceremony held in the school’s gymnasium.

“I don’t think I can hold back my tears,” principal Gloria Marchant told about 100 students, teachers, family and other community members who attended the May 22 ceremony. “Becoming an American citizen has been one of my goals since I decided to make a life here in San Jose.”

For the 44-year-old principal and eight others immigrants who participated, it was a long road to citizenship from their home countries of Mexico, India, the Philippines and Canada. Marchant was born in Chile and moved to Canada when she was in eighth grade. She lived and learned English there for 11 years before a trip to San Francisco convinced her to move to the United States, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

She landed a bilingual teaching job at San Jose Unified School District, which sponsored her work visa, and she went to work, both at school and in her mission to become a citizen.

“Someone saw something in me that I didn’t even see in myself,” the principal said.

The brief ceremony involved would-be citizens taking an Oath of Allegiance, the national anthem sung by sophomore Nathan Luong, and the Pledge of Allegiance, led by student Catherine Martinez. It concluded with a video recording of President Trump congratulating the new citizens, according to the news site.

San Jose High junior Robert Gamble said he was proud to see his principal become a citizen.

“I would not be where I am without her guidance,” he said. “I wanted to come here to support her, because of all that she’s taught me.”

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services field office director James Wyrough, who officiated the ceremony, said the events held in schools are “always especially meaningful,” and Marchant jumped at the chance to bring the experience to her school.

“Many of the students are on the path to citizenship themselves, and it’s a long journey,” she said. “That makes it really meaningful.”

Almost one out of four (23 percent) public school students in the United States came from an immigrant household in 2015. Between a fourth and a third of these students are offspring of illegal immigrants. So seeing someone respected within their community complete a legal path to citizenship is a powerful civic lesson. James Hunter and Ryan Olson write in The Content of Their Character, “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” (p. 285). Many more naturalization ceremonies should be held in public schools.

Developing young people as good citizens is a primary responsibility of teachers and in doing this teachers work to ensure their students become good people despite the negative influences they face in society, in the media and perhaps, even from their very neighborhood.  Teaching students about citizenship and the responsibilities of being an American citizen should be of paramount importance when discussing the responsibilities and benefits of being a citizen.  A support for teachers in teaching their students to be good people may be found at the UK’s The Jubilee Centre here.

Students at Le Roy Junior-Senior High School are helping younger students in Batavia, New York to “Believe In” developing good character, a new program aimed at strengthening the bond between schools while encouraging positive behavior.

In mid-May, the entire student body at Le Roy traveled to Wolcott Street Elementary School, where students partnered with youngsters to talk about why it’s important to display good character, The Batavian reports.

“The Jr.-Sr. High School divided the school into 30 teams that each connected with an elementary class. Each team had a student leader who facilitated the group through an introduction and a discussion around our ‘Believe In …’ visual, which listed key character traits and behaviors (Believe In … doing the right thing, kindness, honesty, acceptace, helping others, teamwork, being brave, dreaming big, and yourself),” according to a release from school officials.

“The students participated in sharing why, when, and how they show these qualities on a daily basis. Then students paired up and created their own ‘Believe’ rock, listing their chosen top character quality along with a picture.”

Public schools are often wary of talking specifically about moral behavior. Here by letting students take the lead, the why, when, and how of moral behavior are all discussed. This particularity is commendable. James Davison Hunter, founder of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, counsels, “There have never been ‘generic’ values of the sort that typical moral education programs pursue. No one has ever believed in kindness or honesty without understanding them in the concrete circumstances of a moral culture embedded in a moral community” (The Tragedy of Moral Education in America, p. 59). The candor by which students are discussing moral traits, the contextualizing of these behaviors, and then making them “cool” is all very commendable.

The groups shared their rocks and discussed why they chose the particular character quality. The rocks were then put on display at both schools. The meeting followed up on other work between the schools, including posters elementary students decorated for the high school and a video of a “Believe” song recorded by the elementary school students and edited by the high-schoolers that was screened at the recent get-together.

The collaboration was coordinated by the elementary school’s Emerging Knights student leadership team, as well as administrators and character education teams at both schools.

“We cannot thank our students, staff and transportation team enough for their participation and making this district-wide event such a huge success!” officials wrote.

“The event was the first of its kind at our district and was a powerful moment for everyone involved,” school officials wrote. “The elementary teachers had a chance to see their old students come back to their classrooms, and the interaction between younger and older students was incredible.”

Teachers working to strengthen moral and citizenship formation in their students may find the UK’s The Jubilee Centre offers “The Knightly Virtues Programme” which is worthwhile to review for assistance on how to instill virtue in students using books students love to read.  The Knightly Virtues Programme is designed to enhance virtue literacy through stories, has been incredibly popular with both teachers and students.  So far, over 20,000 primary school pupils have had access to the programme, making it one of the largest projects of its kind. The research project has now concluded, and the full report is available here.

Randy Ark, an advocate for military veterans in Springfield, Ohio, is commending local welding students for supporting the men and women in uniform who fought for the freedoms we have as Americans.

Students with the Clark Career Technology Center donated $1,000 earned from a recent Welding Rodeo to renovate Clark County Veteran’s Memorial Park and send veterans to Washington, D.C. to tour national memorials in their honor, the Springfield News-Sun reports.

Students raised a total of $3,600 by selling unique structures made from scrap metal at the Rodeo, and donated $500 each to the park and Honor Flight Dayton, a nonprofit that takes veterans and their families and caregivers to the nation’s capital.

Ark told the news site the donations are a big deal, for several reasons.

“One is to getting the money for the park, which we need, and two is the attitude of these young students,” he said, adding that it’s the second time in the last few years students have donated a portion of their profits.

Ark said local veterans are raising $380,000 to finish a memorial at the park that will feature a Vietnam area, stage, benches, and an arbor with vegetation. Funds will also pay for landscaping and engravings on the monuments, the Sun-News reports.

Al Bailey, with Honor Flight Dayton, told the news site the students’ $500 donation is enough to send at least one veteran to D.C.

“To send a veteran back to D.C. to see the memorials is $500, so we’re doing whatever we can to raise that kind of money,” he said.

Junior Zack Parcels said he was happy to put his welding skills to good use by creating a derby bike that sold at the rodeo for $50.

“It feels good just to know that the things that we can make out of nothing can sell to help the community,” he said.

Researchers at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture stress the importance of developing spheres of moral obligation. It is here where one develops a sense of responsibility for and ownership of something larger than oneself. Rural schools, their research found, are particularly strong in fostering these connections, with immigration, religion, and military being the top three. Great teachers, they write, “In addition to building greater knowledge of cultures and societies outside of the US, were aiming primarily to build social-perspective taking, empathy and general critical thinking skills” (The Content of Their Character, p. 63).

Fostering empathy, social-perspective taking and general critical thinking takes talent and skill on the part of teachers and this type of work is very challenging for educators.  To gain support to do this work teachers will benefit from the strategies offered by the UK’s The Jubilee Centre.  In particular, teachers will find information to strengthen character formation here.

Johnson County Middle School student Andrew Reece takes Flag Duty seriously, and his dedication hasn’t gone unnoticed.

Two years ago, Reece agreed to raise the American flag at his school every morning and lower and fold it each afternoon, with the help of Flag Duty teammate Donnie Curd. It’s an exercise designed as an opportunity for students to demonstrate responsibility and citizenship.

So when the 13-year-olds noticed the school’s flag was in tatters, Reece decided to take action, The Tomahawk reports.

“I was lowering our flag, and I saw that it was ripped and felt that we needed to have a new one,” he told the news site. “I decided to write a letter and ask our state representative if we could get a new flag.”

Tennessee state Rep. Timothy Hill got the message, and he was so impressed by Reece’s diligence that he delivered a new flag in person earlier this month. He also presented Reece with a letter recognizing his efforts and a state flag that “was actually flown over the state Capitol,” Hill said.

This Andrew’s initiative is a timely reminder of the nature of morality. James Davison Hunter of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture writes in The Tragedy of Moral Education in America, “Morality is a vision of moral goods shared by a community; the attitudes, aspirations, sensibilities, and dispositions that define its highest aspirations for itself, and how those moral goods find expression in every situation in daily life.” This action and the response of the state representative reflect these higher shared values.

“We do get a lot of calls for a flag, but this was different; something that we do not get often,” Hill said. “I really appreciated Andrew’s request and effort of personally writing to us, which demonstrated his commitment to his assignment and patriotism.”

After Hill presented the new flag, the boys proudly lowered the old one to replace it.

The old flag will now be retired according to The Flag Code, which requires a flag burning ceremony. Flag burning ceremonies are routinely conducted by most American Legion Posts, though many Cub Scout packs, Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops retire flags, as well.

The Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues has a very interesting article, Living Within Reason, that outlines the thinking of Thomas Aquinas on cardinal virtues that people should acquire in order to live a good and just life.  Teachers and principals working to strengthen the moral and citizenship formation of their students could think about how they could incorporate the pursuit of these virtues as part of the daily experience of students.