character

On this soccer team, soccer is the third priority

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Indy Millennium Soccer players know they are “sons first, students second, and then, players—in that order.” Those priorities have made them among the best in Indiana two years running, WTHR reports.

With club teams a growing business, some cities are pinning their hopes for economic growth on youth sports. But as the stakes go up, more and more young people from low-income families are excluded. “Players’ fees” of up to $6,000 per year are imposed, which doesn’t count the cost of uniforms, equipment, and travel. Private coaching can cost $100 an hour or more.

Indy Millennium is a soccer club that runs nine teams for players from ages 8 though 17 who get experienced coaches and play at an elite level. They don’t have to pay, but they are taught that assists in life are more important than assists on the field. Coaches emphasize character before they even start talking about soccer skills.

Along with being respectful of their families, teachers, coaches, and peers, players must maintain their grades and volunteer at least 10 hours per week to stay on the field. They also learn the importance of teamwork and that no player, no matter how skilled,  can do it alone.

Youth sports are an ideal place for character formation.

Matthew Braswell explains why it’s good to love football (or any sport) in The Hedgehog Review. Quoting Michael Serazino, he says, “. . . if you look hard at sports, you can’t help but see contours of religion.” Braswell continues: “He cited the early sociologist Émile Durkheim, for whom religion was of interest not so much as a body of scripture or doctrines but as a means of social solidarity and common purpose. When people come together to worship, whether the ostensible object of their worship is a religious totem or a battalion of athletes, they are affirming themselves as a community.”

The opportunity for youth sports is to cultivate a community ethos of “sons first, students second, and then, players—in that order.” When passionate athletes who want to win have a goal higher than winning, the common purpose truly serves the community.

Westfield, Indiana has a tremendous asset in the Millennium Soccer program. The Positive Coaching Alliance offers resources for parents, administrators, coaches, and athletes—including former UCLA coach John Wooden’s Pyramid of Success.

Indiana votes to require ’employability skills’

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Indiana’s State Board of Education recently voted to require students to demonstrate “employability skills” with service projects, or receive college ready scores on entrance exams to graduate from high school.

The decision came despite objections from the state’s teachers union, which deemed the changes unnecessary, but also raised important questions about the primary purpose of education, especially the formation of strong moral character.

According to the Associated Press:

The new requirements passed on a 7-4 vote after hours of testimony from those who overwhelmingly opposed the changes, including educators and labor unions.

Beginning in 2023, students will have to complete additional coursework, demonstrate employability skills through service or work projects, or show they’re ready for college by receiving high scores on exams that include the SAT and ACT.

Teresa Meredith, president of the Indiana State Teachers Association, complained that the state school board ignored parents, teachers, counselors, and school officials who opposed the move, which some believe will add to the burden of already overworked educators.

Goshen High School Principal Barry Younghans believes that setting the bar higher for students by requiring college ready scores will result in an overall decline in graduation rates. Others, meanwhile, support the idea of the “employability skills” graduation pathway for students who want to become skilled workers.

“Middle school needs to plant the seed that there are honorable and well-paid jobs that do not require a college degree,” said Benteler Automotive’s Mark Melnick, according to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette.

And while the debate between opponents and proponents of the change has centered mostly on testing and career development, it actually involves a fundamental question about the primary purpose of education, the formation of moral character.

In his book The Tragedy of Moral Education in America, sociologist James Davison Hunter points to the importance of character.

“We believe that character is central to that project [of American democracy], a shared character. And, crucially, almost everyone recognizes that the formation of our children’s character can only be accomplished with the help of our public institutions, particularly our schools. Parents can only do so much on their own,” wrote Hunter, founder of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture.

Some schools are following the character-centered approach, ingraining lessons of character into all subjects and elevating formation above all other goals.

Dan Scoggin, founder of Great Hearts Academies, explained why the school’s education model does not view the role of schools as merely an element of workforce development:

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.

By focusing their efforts on forming people rather than workers, Great Hearts serves as a model by graduating the kind of well-educated young people who are also highly desirable to employers.

NHL: The Skills Center keeping kids out of the penalty box

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The National Hockey League recently awarded a Tampa Bay sports-based youth development center with a check for $5,000 to help promote academics and character formation through athletics.

The NHL partnered with the Tampa Bay Lightning hockey team to invest in The Skills Center, a local youth organization with a mission to “intentionally utilize athletics as a mechanism to create change through academic success, life skills, and mentoring for young people ages 3-18 in Tampa Bay,” according to NHL.com.

“We’d like to thank the National Hockey League for awarding The Skills Center with a Diversity and Inclusion Grant today,” said Lightning’s vice president of community hockey development, Jay Feaster. “The additional funds will allow for these kids to experience the great game of hockey, while also making it possible for the facility to implement the Future Goals-Hockey Scholar program. We look forward to using hockey to aid in the development of the children at The Skills Center.”

The NHL grant is focused on using street hockey to engage elementary and middle school students in the “Future Goals-Hockey Scholar” character education program. The Skills Center will use the money to buy bumper divider pads to convert its outdoor basketball courts into a street hockey rink, and for iPads for the after-school program.

The Tampa Bay Lightning invited about 50 students from The Skills Center to a check presentation ceremony at Centennial Fan Arena in early December. The Skills Center executive director Celeste Roberts accepted the check at the event, which also featured a tutorial of the Future Goals-Hockey Scholar program and free t-shirts for students.

“The Skills Center provides school-based and community-based programs that motivate youth to learn, change behavior and succeed in school,” NHL.com reports. “Focusing on developing core competencies through academic instruction and character education, the organization’s prevention services promote positive youth development to all youth, especially at-risk and disadvantaged elementary, middle, and high school students through school day, after school and summer programs; leagues, travel teams, and camps/clinics.”

The NHL’s investment is a good thing, because when athletic and other organizations invest in supportive networks, they strengthen the community that forms character in children.

James Davison Hunter, founder of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia, points out in his book The Tragedy of Moral Education:

Moral education can work where the community, and schools and other institutions within it, share a moral culture that is integrated and mutually reinforcing . . .

The Skills Center is obviously one of many institutions supporting families and schools in forming good character in students.

The Skills Center website offers ways parents and others can volunteer to contribute to its mission of teaching values and life skills through sports. It also offers a wide variety of resources for students and parents, from academic mentoring and leadership opportunities to elite training camps and sports leagues.

“Our philosophy is every kid is capable of learning in the right environment, with caring adults and an intentional focus,” according to the site. “We give our youth an environment that brings out the best in them and give us the opportunity to coach them for life.”

Focus on character in high school, when decisions have consequences

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Character education is of fundamental importance; however, it can be harder to agree on the time in a child’s life when it can have the greatest impact.

Arguments in education have gone back and forth on this question, and a recent meta-study presented at Oxford University has aimed to provide some clarity to the discussion, reports Religion News Service.

The Religion News Service reported that, “[C]ombining the results of 52 studies of character education, including over 225,000 students indicated that character education had the greatest impact on youth, when it took place in high school.”

The meta-study was conducted by William Jeynes, Professor of Education at California State University, Long Beach, and Senior Fellow with The Witherspoon Institute in Princeton (New Jersey).

Jeynes noted that, “The results are particularly intriguing, because the sparse number of character education school programs that there are, emphasize ‘getting them when they’re young.”

In some ways, the results of the meta-study do seem to defy conventional logic. We know that childrens’ minds are exceptionally malleable at a young age. Therefore, wouldn’t it make sense that this is the time to focus on the development of their character?

Jeynes responds to this point, “Although these results go against the tide of the current thought that character instruction should primarily take place when pupils are young, upon further examination, they really do make sense. Students begin the process of making some of the most important decisions of their lives when they are in high school. If there is ever a time in which they need moral guidance, this is the time period.”

The important decisions that Jeynes references can have reverberations throughout a student’s lifespan. As our young adults make critical choices regarding life, career, and community, they should be making these decisions with a firm sense of the ideals to which they will give themselves, and to which they will submit.

The Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia has also argued that adolescence is a period of fundamental importance. During this time, young people actively embrace a vision of “the good.”

As James Davison Hunter, the Institute’s Executive Director and founder, details in The Death of Character, “[C]haracter is shaped not by a cowering acquiescence to rules imposed externally but as a conscious, directed obedience to truths authoritatively received and affirmed.”

Hunter’s distinction between “rules imposed externally” and “truth’s authoritatively received” is useful to keep in mind when considering the potential causes of Jeynes’s findings.

It is realistic to expect that a young child is only capable of understanding character education as rules that they must obey. We know that rules can only govern human behavior to a certain extent; they are not binding on the soul in the same manner as character.

However, a high-school student is intellectually capable of grappling with the “Why”inherent in moral education. If they are able to ascertain the reason for submitting one’s self to timeless truths, they could be more likely to internally receive them, as Hunter describes.

High school teachers should not feel that they are without resources to form their students’ character. The Jubilee Center for Character and Virtues, for example, offers a unit on Joan of Arc that engages students in literary and historical study of inspiring heroes for teenagers.

The use of such lessons can begin to orient high school students towards ideals that will enrich their lives for years to come.

Performance vs. politics in Chicago schools

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Chicago Public Schools administrators are sending students a message: Performance and accountability mean nothing; it’s political perception that really matters.

In September, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel touted the district’s graduation rate and student test scores as something the state should be proud of.

“These are statistics, I would hope the state of Illinois would actually see the success of what’s happening in Chicago, and, rather than run it down, hold it up,” Emanuel said, according to the Chicago Sun Times. “Be proud of it.”

A recent analysis of 2016 data by the Chicago City Wire shows the Windy City mayor is full of hot air.

The news service compared end-of-year tests known as Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) with the district’s reported graduation rate to illustrate each schools’ “graduation fraud index.”

Essentially, a lot more students are graduating than are passing the test, proving that the diplomas Emanuel is so proud of are basically worthless. The PARCC tests are designed to determine if students are “ready for the next level,” and it’s clear many are not.

Clark Academy Preparatory Magnet High School, for example, reports a 93.1% graduation rate, while only 4.1% of students at the school meet or exceed expectations on PARCC tests—leading to a “graduation fraud index” of -89, City Wire reports.

Marine Leadership Academy at Ames’ graduation rate is 100%, but only 11.6% passed the PARRC test, giving the school a -88.5 “graduation fraud index.”

Every single high school in the city, with the exceptions of Northside College Preparatory High School and Chicago Virtual Charter School, graduate at a higher percentage of students than those that pass the PARRC test.

The bottom line: “data shows a staggering difference between the rate of students deemed ‘ready for the next level’ by state standards and those graduating from high school,” according to the news site.

The fact that Chicago Public Schools are graduating students who fail annual exams is an institutional and cultural breakdown that threatens students’ character development.

James Davison Hunter, founder of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, explained the implications of such breakdowns in his book The Death of Character.

“By looking carefully at the ways in which we mediate moral understanding to children, we may learn much about the kind of society we live in and will pass on to future generations,” Hunter wrote.

Adults demonstrate their moral character or lack of character through their actions, and students quickly learn whether adults will say or do whatever is expedient. It’s a crisis not just because of the moral failure of adults, but also because of the consequences for the students those adults are supposed to serve.

Educators in Chicago and elsewhere can benefit from a lesson in “professional virtue” from the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues to understand what it really means to model strong character for the next generation.

Club teaches boys to lead in positive ways

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Administrators at Illinois’ Quincy Junior High School are working with 6th-grade boys to give them the “skills to make a man valuable and character to make a man invaluable,” The Herald Whig reports.

“They’re men in the making—and what they learn now, along with how they act, can help them move into the future confident and capable,” according to the news site.

QJHS Principal Dan Sparrow explained how the idea to help guide the school’s boys into adulthood began when he noticed assistant principal Rick Owsley and “a couple of kids during lunch . . . outside weeding, picking up things.”

“He saw an opportunity that they kind of wanted to give back to the school, taking some pride in it,” Sparrow said.

In December, several 6th-grade boys met up with Owsley to launch the school’s first Men in the Making Club, which teaches life skills and character virtues highlighted in the best-selling book Manual to Manhood.

Students were required to get written permission from their parents to attend, during advisory periods or lunch, and discuss the issues they face as they grow into men.

“Moving from boys to become men is hard,” Sparrow said. “With that comes responsibility.”

Sixth-grader Chase Lawrence said he signed up because “it sounded like fun, interesting and a great time.”

“Plus, people can talk to us, help us,” he said.

Students who join receive a gift box with a book and T-shirt, which Sparrow asks the boys to wear on Fridays to show their pride. Lunchtime discussions center on issues like respect, and building a “social-emotional bank account” to use at school.

“How do you get respect? It’s not given. You’ve got to what?” Sparrow asked students.

“Earn it,” the boys said, according to the Herald Whig.

Sparrow said he wants the students to understand that the way they project themselves—whether they do their homework, how they treat teachers and classmates—impacts their character, and their ability to lead.

“People are going to look at what we do, how we behave, how we act, the things we say,” Sparrow said. “The biggest part of that’s trust. You’ve got to have the trust of people, then you will earn the respect.”

Sparrow said the goal is to build strong character in students that will ultimately draw others into the club and its positive mindset.

“Sometimes students lead in positive ways. Sometimes they lead in negative ways. If we convince the negative leaders to lead in positive ways . . . when we start doing this together, start growing this, then we truly can make junior high what we all want it to be,” Sparrow said.

The QJHS Men in the Making Club fills a critical role in character formation and moral education.

James Davison Hunter, founder of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia, wrote in The Death of Character that morality “is received by the individual, internalized into subjective consciousness, and thus experienced as the basic ordering of categories of life.”

Sparrow is providing the vision of responsibility for young men at his school through intentional practice and regular guidance.

Jonathan Catherman, educator and author of Manual to Manhood, offers a framework for building clubs, as well as a guide to get started.

Catholic school poll: approval of character at local level

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A national survey on character in which a West Roxbury, Massachusetts, Catholic school participated found that respondents have far more confidence in the integrity of local leaders than national ones, a lesson that the school is using to teach its students about character, despite the polarized national political landscape.

Catholic Memorial School President Peter Folan recently penned an editorial for Wicked Local Roslindale to explain how the all-boys school is engaging students in character education by launching the Research Institute for Politics and Public Policy, and what they’re learning from the experience.

Folan wrote that Catholic Memorial started the Institute because “as educators and parents, we have an obligation to help children find perspective and engage in important dialogue about real-world problems.”

“Our goal,” he wrote, “was to provide our students with the skills needed to search for truth.”

That search began with Catholic Memorial students and faculty putting together a national survey about character that was distributed through a Suffolk University/USA Today poll. Some of the results were predictable, with most respondents (64%) reporting an unfavorable view of the U.S. Congress and current national discourse.

Other findings, however, were far more promising.

Folan wrote:

In the midst of the discord, a silver lining emerged, as the national data presented positive approval of the character and integrity of local elected officials (61 percent), local clergy (65 percent), and local police (82 percent). These statistics sparked great debate and dialogue in our mathematics, history, and theology classes.

The CM poll also highlighted an 85 percent approval rating of the character and integrity of members of one’s local community, while members of the national community garnered only 55 percent approval. Our students also discovered in their analysis a stark difference regarding views on police, who held an almost 82 percent approval rating locally compared to a recent Gallup Poll that found that just 57 percent of Americans have confidence in the police.

The data is significant because it confirms the foundation of Catholic Memorial’s educational mantra: that “having integrity and character matters,” according to Folan.

It also confirms that students, educators and other leaders “have an obligation to shape the future, and it starts on the local level,” he wrote.

“We must act locally to support the good work done within our communities,” Folan wrote. “There is no doubt that we must strive for constant improvement at both the local and national level. We must also never forget that the work we do in our individual spheres does make a difference. Progress happens one step at a time and starts within our local neighborhoods.”

Folan’s sentiment echoes research from the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture.

James Davison Hunter, a sociologist and Executive Director of the Institute, wrote in The Death of Character that “character outside of a lived community, the entanglements of complex social relationships, and their shared story, is impossible.”

Within Catholic Memorial’s small lived community, students are learning the importance of having integrity and other character virtues in their personal and community relationships by looking up to local leaders.

The school’s website describes how administrators work to actively form character in young men through challenging and rewarding academic projects, and how the lasting relationships students forge at the school helps them to “articulate and define their aspirations, their hopes, and their dreams.”

Birmingham hires director of character education

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Reports of racist teasing on an elementary school playground prompted Birmingham Public Schools to swiftly form a Diversity Committee and create a new director of character education position to address the issue.

Dan Nerad, superintendent of the Michigan school district, recently announced Beverly Elementary School Principal Jamii Hitchcock will serve as the district’s first director of character education, diversity, and equity, Hometown Life reports.

The move follows the formation of a Diversity Committee to address racist teasing on the playground at Pierce Elementary School. That committee started meetings in November.

Hitchcock, who has a doctor of philosophy degree from Oakland University, will work to ensure students develop “quality character traits and continually excel in a learning environment that is engaging, global and free of achievement gaps,” according to the job description.

Hitchcock “brings to the position broad experience in school administration and extensive professional development in the areas of diversity, equity and inclusion,” Nerad told Hometown Life. “Dr. Hitchcock is also very committed to our district’s work in character education.”

On a day-to-day basis, Hitchcock will work with principals to analyze data and apply it to school improvement plans, work with the Character Education Committee to develop character education opportunities, and create plans to address the district’s achievement gap and diversity issues. She’s also responsible for presentations on the district’s efforts, and coordination with outside groups like the Birmingham African American Family Network, the Student Achievement Network, and Character.org.

The new position comes during an important cultural moment at the school and nation that centers on character, and it could fill a critical need.

University of Virginia sociologist James Davison Hunter diagnosed the issue in The Death of Character.

“When one couples a steady evacuation of cultural [taken-for-granted assumptions and commitments] with the weakening of key socializing institutions, one has, in effect, undermined the social and cultural conditions necessary for the cultivation of good character,” Hunter wrote.

Hitchcock certainly faces a significant challenge—to strengthen the Birmingham schools, and the families that rely on them, through the crucial role of forming character.

And she’s excited to get started.

“This new opportunity will allow me to continue to work with staff, students and families in a broader capacity,” she wrote in an announcement to Beverly Elementary parents.

Hitchcock and others charged with the responsibility of character education and equity—whether in the classroom or in an office—are building relationships at the core of their work, and many would likely benefit from education professor Kathryn Roe’s wise counsel from her experiences as a teacher at a juvenile detention facility and later as a principal.

Character-focused culture leads to better academic results in Indy

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South Creek Elementary School Principal Toni Stevenson is focusing on forming strong character in students, and it’s transforming the culture at the Indianapolis school and improving test scores.

A reporter with the education website Chalkbeat recently visited with Stevenson after the school improved its state grade from a ‘C’ to an ‘A’ over the last year to talk about the progress.

During the stop, a kindergartner emerged from a classroom to show Stevenson a ticket she received from her teacher for good behavior.

“I was being quiet in the hall!” she told the principal as she stuff the paper into a mailbox outside of her classroom.

“Lauren!” Stevenson said. “Good job!”

According to Chalkbeat:

The brief exchange showed what Stevenson believes is a central part of the culture at Franklin Township’s South Creek—a focus on positive character traits to build community and school spirit. When students are seen being respectful or exemplifying another positive trait, they get a ticket. The more their class collects, the better shot they have at small prizes and schoolwide recognition.

Stevenson told the news site educators at the school were “very emotional” after South Creek went from an ‘A’ rated school in 2014–15 to a ‘C’ school in 2015–16, and she pushed educators to collaborate on best practices. The school district also reduced South Creek’s population by 10 teachers and 200 kids, which prompted teachers to refocus their efforts on how to boost morale and improve happiness.

“After we lost those students and those teachers, we really focused on . . . How do we bring joy back into the classroom?” Stevenson said.

Initially, teachers were reluctant to collaborate, but “slowly, you saw that gradual change where the teachers were very proud opening up their classrooms,” she said. “You saw this ripple effect going through the school, and they opened up their classrooms, and they started sharing.”

The result: student test scores went up by 15 percentage points, with more than 80 percent now passing both English and math portions of the state’s standardized test. The school’s state grade also improved to an ‘A.’

“I was ecstatic,” Stevenson said. “People have different feelings about being recognized by grade, but I felt very happy.”

University of Virginia sociologist James Davison Hunter, founder of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, notes the powerful influence of culture in forming character.

“Much of our moral sensibility, of course, is acquired in our early socialization through the acquisition of language, and in our participation in everyday life,” Hunter wrote in The Death of Character. “Yet primary socialization is also that stage of life when moral instruction is articulated.”

At South Creek, Stevenson and teachers are articulating those norms with the focus on character formation, and the benefits to the school culture and academic performance speak for themselves.

Educators can explore ways to delve into the dynamics of their school culture with help from the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, which offers an introductory video as well as a host of other resources.

Marine Corps hosts character development summer camp for future leaders

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Some kids go to summer camp to learn how to water ski or ride horses.

Others spend a week immersed in a variety of physical, mental, and ethical challenges to learn how to become community leaders.

Each summer, the U.S. Marine Corps Recruiting Command hosts a week-long Summer Leadership and Character Development Academy in Quantico, VA, where high school sophomores and juniors learn valuable life lessons from officers, notable leaders, entrepreneurs, Holocaust survivors, and others.

The academy is designed to introduce students to the Marine Corps’ core values of honor, courage, and commitment through ethical decision-making scenarios that Marines face in the real world, as well as daily physical and mental challenges aimed at developing strong character.

“The program is a leadership program that will teach young high school students how to be an integral part of their community,” Lt. Col. Sara McGrath said in a recent Marine Corps feature. “That could be their high school, town or city, or the college they attend. We will give students the opportunity to listen to Marines and community leaders, experience physical and mental challenges, and then form their own leadership style from these challenges.”

“This program allows students to experience a break from their normal life,” added Capt. Paul C. Shipley, acting platoon commander for the program. “It’s an acculturation process and the enthusiasm the students embrace the challenge with really helps them get through the week.”

The academy invites about 200 students each year through a competitive application process that rates applications based on academics, community service work, leadership traits, moral and ethical standards, and performance on an “Initial Strength Test.”

“I believe the students most enjoy the physical aspects of the program,” said Staff Sgt. Cathleen Barsallo, a platoon sergeant. “The students seem to be most active during the obstacle courses, confidence course, morning physical training and leadership reaction course.”

The camp culminates with a graduation for those who complete all the events successfully, “but this is just the beginning,” according to the SLCDA website.

“The goal of the SLCDA is to return students back to their communities more confident, selfless and better equipped to improve the lives of those around them.”

It certainly seems like a recipe for success.

University of Virginia sociologist James Davison Hunter noted in The Death of Character : “It is precisely these kinds of social worlds, defined by a clear and intelligible understanding of public and private good mediated consistently through integrated social networks of adult authority, that moral instruction has its most enduring effects on young people.”

Students long for the kind of structured social world the SLCDA provides.

In a 2017 Tedx talk, high schooler Virginia Cobbs questioned why her school doesn’t focus on character like summer camp does. She knows that organizations tasked with forming youth must focus on character, and the best schools are creating structured social worlds for their students.