community

MD school connects students with veterans, role models for character formation

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Maryland’s Francis Scott Key High School is connecting students with local veterans and other role models in the community as part of a concerted effort to build good character, an ingredient parents cited as a critical component of quality education during interviews with the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture.

Audrey Cimino, executive director of the Community Foundation of Carroll County, described in a recent editorial for the Carroll County Times how the FSK Advisory Council and Academic Boosters have deliberately worked to emphasize academic achievement and character education.

The FSK Advisory Council consists of school administrators, faculty, alumni, parents, business, community, and political leaders who came together five years ago to make Advanced Placement tests more accessible to low-income students through scholarships, and boost attendance through McDonald’s gift cards.

But the group is impacting students in other ways beyond academics and attendance.

“The Veterans Day Celebration at FSK has brought the students face-to-face with American heroes and both groups have benefited. The vets get to tell their stories and get to know this new generation,” Cimino wrote. “The students get to hear firsthand the history they have only read about and to appreciate the sacrifices made by previous generations that impact their lives today.”

Last week, the FSK Advisory Council unveiled a Wall of Excellence at the high school—”a place where FSK alumni could be held up to the current student body as examples of what former students had achieved and what was possible for them to achieve as well,” according to Cimino.

“Character counts and it is on display at these celebrations,” she wrote.

The Institute’s “Culture of American Families Interview Report” makes clear it’s very important to present students with role models, particularly from previous generations.

It also highlights the importance of using the word “character” or character’s attending virtues.

In the Institute’s interviews with parents—3,500 pages of transcripts—the words “character” and “virtue” were used only 26 times.

“Parents clearly cared about the character of their children,” the report found, but they used other terms.

Qualities like “courage” or “humility” are difficult to measure, but “the words we use have the power to create the worlds we inhabit,” which is why we have to be intentional about words that are more commanding, authoritative, and inspiring, according to the CAF report.

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.

A community-wide effort to ingrain shared values into local culture, curricula

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NEW PROVIDENCE, N.J. – New Providence schools superintendent David Miceli contends quality character education isn’t the result of “an occasional presentation,” but rather a community-wide effort to ingrain shared values into both local culture and school curriculums.

Miceli was joined by New Providence Mayor Al Morgan, New Jersey Commissioner of Education Kimberly Harrington, and County Superintendent Juan Torres earlier this month at New Providence High School to celebrate the district’s recent recognition as one of only four National Districts of Character.

The awards are bestowed by Character.org, which works with state affiliates to highlight school districts “that demonstrate a dedicated focus on character development programs and a positive impact on academic achievement, student behavior, school climate and their communities.”

“Through an in-depth and rigorous evaluation process, these schools were found to be exemplary models of character development,” according to the organization’s website.

School board president Adam Smith told students, parents, staff, and others at the award event that character education doesn’t work without families and a community that embraces volunteerism, Tap into New Providence reports.

“Education is more than algebra, language arts and history,” he said. “Our character education is based on integrity, fairness, respect and responsibility.”

The foundation of the program—an approach that incorporates parents and the community—is central to developing good character in students, according to James Davison Hunter, distinguished University of Virginia sociology professor and author of 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: where the social networks of adult authority are strong, unified, and consistent in articulating moral ideals and their attending virtues; and where adults maintain a ‘caring watchfulness’ over all aspects of a young person’s maturation,” Hunter writes.

“These are environments where intellectual and moral virtues are not only naturally interwoven in a distinctive moral ethos, but embedded within the structure of communities.”

Miceli told CultureFeed that lessons on good character have existed in silos at different schools in the district since the early 2000s, “but students wouldn’t necessarily come away understanding that was part of our character education program.”

“They wouldn’t necessarily connect all the dots,” he said.

It wasn’t until schools began to focus lessons on an annual theme at different schools that things began to click.

“They made tremendous progress with that and it pulled in community members,” he said. “From there, it just grew and other schools started taking on their own themes.”

Four years ago, district officials opted to extend the annual theme district wide, and added a celebration during a “Week of Respect” to align the focus in schools with the greater community, Miceli said.

“This year’s theme is ‘Start small, end big’ . . . ‘Be today’s hero’ was last year’s theme,” he said. “It’s short catchy phrases and we use that all year round . . . and it just ties everyone together districtwide.”

The unified theme, along with a concerted effort to connect with local groups, is “really the hallmark we were recognized for with the national award,” he said.

“We include the constituent groups in our programs and activities. They often participate in many of the programs we run on a yearly basis,” Miceli said, adding that the effort has proved successful in many ways. “When you have a caring and supportive community, you’ll see better gains on academic achievement.”

©2017 Advanced Studies in Culture

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