service

N.J. kids helping again with Christmas food drive

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This article was originally published on Dec. 25, 2017. It has been updated with new artwork.

Students in Delano, N.J. have partnered with the Knights of Columbus for well over 20 years to collect food for struggling local families during the Christmas season.

This year is no different, with students at M. Joan Pearson Elementary and Walnut Street Elementary hauling in more than 2,163 cans through early December, an annual exercise guidance counselor Allison Donnelly said helps youngsters develop community spirit and strong character virtues like compassion.

“It helps them give back, and then it helps them realize that there are other people in their community, maybe their next-door neighbors, that do need a little more assistance,” Donnelly told the Burlington County Times.

Donnelly explained that the district focuses on building character in students by promoting a good character trait every month, and the annual food drive fits well with December’s theme of compassion.

“It’s the holidays and we should be helping. And our student character trait this month is actually compassion and caring. So it goes right along with our student character trait—being compassionate, collecting cans, giving to those in need,” Donnelly said.

“It helps families in our area, Riverside, and Delran, so it’s really a great food drive,” Donnelly said. “We love doing it every year.”

Seven-year-old Remy Seiter, who hauls boxed food and cans from his classroom in a little red wheelbarrow at least one a week, told the Times he enjoys helping others.

“Some people don’t have any food, and I just think it’s really nice to donate to them,” he said.

University of Virginia sociologist James Davison Hunter points to the neoclassical tradition of practice-based models of character education in his book The Death of Character.

“The cornerstone of the neoclassical strategy is the Arisotelian argument that virtue is acquired in much the same way as other skills and abilities—through practice,” Hunter wrote.

The approach relies on educators to move beyond posters on a wall to connect repeated action to character virtues, much like the food drive in Delano.

Teachers working to help kids make the connection between words, feelings, and actions will find the stages of developing compassion from the Jubilee Centre helpful as they engage students in meaningful activities like school food drives and other community outreach.

Clemson student cites divine calling in gift and mentoring program

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This article was originally published on Jan. 26, 2018. It has been updated with new artwork.

Clemson University sophomore Price Crenshaw is on a mission that she says was inspired by her faith—a mission to serve.

“These were very vivid dreams that consisted of a layout and everything,” she told Clemson University Relations. “This kept happening every night for two weeks, so I decided to do something about it.”

The education major explained it all began with her grandfather, Robert McLoud, a 1966 Clemson alumnus who died in a battle with pancreatic cancer in 2015. Crenshaw was raised by her mother and grandfather, and his death left her searching for answers about her own future.

After high school, Crenshaw said she focused on mission work and outreach to the homeless in her hometown of Charleston, and didn’t initially plan to attend college. “The heart I had for the homeless made me lose sight of wanting to go to college. I just hated the thought of spending money, going into debt and pursuing a career for my own gains,” she said. “But the Lord was not going to let me not go to college.”

That’s when Crenshaw attended a speech by Emily Hoisington, founder of Charleston Hope, an education nonprofit that supports teachers and students in Title 1 schools. Hoisington’s talk sparked Crenshaw’s dream of creating her own chapter of the program, and she later reached out to Hoisington to help her set one up at Clemson University.

Clemson University Relations reports:

Crenshaw threw herself into the project, managing her time so that she could be a part of every campus ministry possible—sometimes going to three different Churches every Sunday. Within two weeks she’d assembled a seven-person leadership team—six freshmen and one sophomore.

The group contacted the principal of James M. Brown Elementary, who agreed to Crenshaw’s pitch to deliver presents to students for Christmas as part of a broader, ongoing mentorship program.

“On my first try Ashley Robertson, the principal, answered the phone!” said Crenshaw. “I was kind of in shock and didn’t really know what to say because I wasn’t expecting an answer. But the words quickly came out of my mouth and Ashley and I met that following Friday. I shared with her my dream, my passion, my heart for Clemson Hope and for serving her school. We agreed on the partnership.”

When Crenshaw called Hoisington to relay the good news—that she signed up 35 classrooms and 620 students for the Adopt-A-Classroom campaign—she was floored. James Brown Elementary is roughly three times larger than most schools in Charleston, and providing presents for every student for Christmas was an overwhelming task for the first-year nonprofit.

“She said, ‘Price! What have you done?!’” Crenshaw recalled.

“The only thing I have to say is the Lord made what was an impossible task possible,” she said. “I spent every waking hour that I wasn’t in school walking up and down the streets going to businesses and speaking at sororities, churches and Rotary clubs. We got all 35 classrooms adopted and were able to provide all 620 students with a wrapped Christmas present and a holiday snack. We had over 70 community members help us wrap all the presents at our wrapping night and finished in an hour and a half!”

This year’s event expanded to more than 100 volunteers who wrapped more than 1,100 presents for students at both James M. Brown and Westminster elementaries, where students were beaming as they opened their gifts last month.

“For many of my students this will be the only Christmas present that they open this year,” Robertson said. “We have a tremendous need. We currently have 630 kids and about 80 percent are on free and reduced lunches. The excitement and sheer joy of this day is like no others. The smiles, the crying—it’s wonderful.”

Crenshaw said the Adopt-A-Classroom program aims to ensure students know the community is invested in them, and it’s about more than presents.

“What I really like to emphasize is that Adopt-A-Classroom is not just about giving Christmas presents,” she said. “The presents serve as our opportunity to get into the classroom, gain the students’ trust and form relationships with them that we continue through our mentoring programs.”

James Davison Hunter, founder of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, at the University of Virginia notes in The Death of Character that character “develops in relation to moral convictions defined by specific moral, philosophical, or religious truths. Far from being free-floating abstractions, these traditions of moral reasoning are fixed in social habit and routine within social groups and communities.”

“Character does not require religious faith,” Hunter wrote. “But it does require the conviction of truth made sacred, abiding as an authoritative presence within consciousness and life, reinforced by habits institutionalized within a moral community.”

Schools, both public and private, depend on folks with deep convictions who have the confidence to state fundamental beliefs and act on them to help their communities. Crenshaw provides an admirable example of a religious believer whose beliefs are not confined to “private” religious practice, but flow out in “public” service.

Hoisington, founder of Charleston Hope, provides another example in an inspiring video about how she started the nonprofit in 2011, and how it’s since expanded to chapters in Clemson and Spartanburg, South Carolina, and Akron, Ohio.

The underlying theme, she said, can be summed up by a quote from Ghandi: “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”

OH students show commitment to kindness to raise funds for school security

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Students in Geneva, Ohio schools are showing off their commitment to kindness for all to see.

Middle and high schools recently pledged to treat everyone with kindness during an event to kickoff a month of kindness awareness programs. The effort, designed by Geneva Parents for School Safety, coincides with National Bullying Prevention Month in October, the Star Beacon reports.

“Kindness is the key to overcoming bullying,” Geneva Parents for School Safety co-director and counselor Marti Milliken Dixon said. “Young people who are kind to each other have far fewer instances of bullying behavior. Teaching a young person kindness is an effective way to improve our society both locally and globally.”

About 100 students tied red and white ribbons on a fence outside of school to show their commitment to treating others with respect and intervening in bullying situations – a display that will greet visitors throughout the month.

“The ribbons blowing in the breeze will be a month-long reminder of their pledge,” Dixon said. “When we empower young people to stand up to the bullies and use positive peer pressure to curb these behaviors, the benefits are palpable. This activity also provides young people with a tangible representation of their good work.”

The kindness pledge event – along with rock painting at elementary schools, compliments day at the middle school, and the creation of a kindness garden at the community library – also serve as fundraisers for Geneva Parents for School Safety to purchase 251 emergency lockdown barriers for every classroom in Geneva Area City Schools, the Star Beacon reports.

“We’re currently at 30 percent of our fundraising goal,” Geneva Parents co-director Margie Netzel said. “Our sponsors have shown they understand the need for safety in our schools and are helping to make it happen.”

Administrators throughout the district spoke up in support of the program, and applauded the focus on rallying the community together around kindness.

“Anything we can do to help kids be sensitive to others and kinder is a positive thing,” Geneva High School Principal Douglas Wetherholt said. “The anti-bullying message is important to us.”

“We want to involve the entire community in this effort,” middle school principal Alex Anderson added.

James Davison Hunter, founder of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, pointed to the importance of school practices and connections to the community in “The Content of Their Character,” an analysis of character education in a variety of different U.S. schools.

“How a school is organized, the course structure and classroom practices, the relationship between school and outside civic institutions – all these matter in the moral and civic formation of the child,” Hunter wrote.

Parents and educators looking for tips to combat bullying can find a variety of resources from Champions Against Bullying. The group’s “No-Nonsense Guide To Kids’ Bullying Solutions,” for example, teaches students “prevention and intervention strategies, immediate practical solutions and safe and effective ways to help a friend who is being targeted by bullies,” among other topics.

IL school examines JROTC’s positive impacts on student character, community

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Illinois’ Elgin Area School District U-46 is weighing the benefits and drawbacks of launching a Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps program, something local veterans strongly support.

“The primary goal of the program is to motivate young people to be better citizens,” Craig Essick, Elgin American Legion commander and former police officer, told the Daily Herald. “We cannot think of a better goal for U-46 students as they pursue an education and learn the true meaning of citizenship and service to our communities.”

U-46 could join several other suburban Chicago school districts that already have Air Force, Army, or Navy JROTC programs. Those programs are overseen by certified instructors and military officers who guide students to develop life skills, discipline, organization, confidence, and leadership abilities. JROTC students also learn about the military, history, international law, current events, aerodynamics and physical sciences through a variety of activities, from flying with local flying clubs to academic, marksmanship and robotics teams, according to the news site.

“There are some kids who just may not be athletes, or science club doesn’t spark them,” said Jeff Morse, a Desert Shield veteran who has taught the Navy JROTC program at Northwest Suburban High School for 24 years. “But they get into ROTC and they find something they can be good at, and it just changes them. It’s got something to offer to just about anyone with any background.”

Much of the program centers on character and service, West Aurora High School Air Force JROTC Lt. Col. Erik Pettyjohn said.

“We do have high expectations of behavior,” said Pettyjohn, who teaches aerospace science. “It offers a lot of structure. We basically use Air Force customs and traditions to instill good character, honesty, integrity, service and excellence. …

“A lot of time students won’t get that type of instruction, mentorship in other areas,” he told the Daily Herald.

Carter Bell, the retired Army major who runs Waukegan High School’s 100-year-old Army JROTC program, stressed the program’s benefit to the community. Waukegan’s 600 student cadets – the second-largest program in the nation – help with park clean ups, guide 5K races, serve at pancake breakfasts, and volunteer at parent-teacher conferences, among many other things, he said.

“The purpose of a leader is to serve others,” Bell said. “Last year, we contributed over 5,000 hours of community service to Waukegan. High school (Army) ROTC cadets contributed more than 7 million hours of community service to the nation.”

Researchers at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture point to the importance of a “thick” and “dense” moral culture like the JROTC in “The Content of Their Character,” a summary of research into character education in a wide variety of schools.

Through numerous interviews and observations, researchers noted “the source and setting for moral and civic education matter – that the ‘thickness’ of cultural endowments and the ‘density’ of moral community within which those endowments find expression are significant in the formation of personal and public virtue in children.”

The U.S. Army website provides more details about the benefits of the ROTC program, and military service in general, including ways students can secure financial assistance to pursue a college degree while still in high school.

JROTC students excel: ‘Comes with being part of something much bigger than themselves’

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Ashby Foote, city councilman in Jackson, Mississippi, is a big fan of the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, and for good reason.

Foote recently penned an editorial for the Clarion Ledger that offers his take on the program amid a district overhaul designed to reinvent education in Jackson Public Schools, and why he believes district officials should pursue opportunities to expand the Corp’s  influence on students.

“ … While new leadership works to reinvent and reinvigorate Jackson Public Schools (JPS), it is worth highlighting an old program within JPS that excels at the highest level – the Junior Officers’ Training Corps. In the critical metric of graduation rates, JROTC achieved 95 percent, far surpassing JPS’ 70 percent, Mississippi’s 83 percent and the national high school rate of 84 percent,” Foote wrote.

“But it doesn’t stop there. JROTC cadets also outperform in daily attendance, grade point average, ACT scores and acceptance to institutions of higher learning.”

Foote explained that JPS’ JROTC program, a staple in the district since 1936, initially started as a means of preparing young men for the possibility of war, but gradually evolved into a program with a laser like focus on citizenship, character development, and successful living after school.

The councilman contends “JROTC’s dramatic outperformance year after year doesn’t happen by chance,” and pointed to the instructors – all retired military with 20 years or more of experience – for offering students something that “goes far beyond education credentials.”

“They bring a can-do, purpose-driven culture that comes with being part of something much bigger than themselves,” Foote wrote. “They bring experiences from lives lived across the world, and in some instances, under the most adverse of conditions. And they bring organizational values including structure, ethics, discipline, accountability, mutual respect and a passion for success.”

The program also offers students “an impressive array of extracurricular programs” each summer, including camps at the Nanotoxicity Computational Chemistry Institute, National Flight Academy at Pensacola Naval Air Station, Mississippi State Engineering/Geosciences STEM Camp, William Carey Health Careers STEM camp, and the Southern Miss Computer Science/Cybersecurity Camp, among other training opportunities.

“JORTC works,” Foote wrote. “It works because it brings the right capabilities and a tough love commitment to critical tasks that are vital to the long-term future of JPS and Jackson.”

Researchers at the Institute of Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia point to importance of creating “thick” and “dense” moral cultures like the JROTC in “The Content of Their Character,” a summary of research into character education in a wide variety of schools.

Researchers noted that “the source and setting for moral and civic education matter – that the ‘thickness’ of cultural endowments and the ‘density’ of moral community within which those endowments find expression are significant in the formation of personal and public virtue in children.”

Educators looking to delve deeper into character formation, and the virtues promoted by JROTC, can find resources at Virtue Insight. The site is a blog by the UK’s Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues that more closely examines the virtues that support strong moral character – temperance, courage, justice, and practical wisdom – through the observations of former priest and theologian Thomas Aquinas.

High school students spend Spring Break building home for elderly widow

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Boston College High School student Tai Thurber spent his April vacation in Belize, but he wasn’t lounging on the beach or checking out the local tourist attractions.

Instead, the Dedham, Massachusetts 17-year-old and 11 of his classmates toiled in the hot and humid Central American climate for three days to construct a new home for a 72-year-old woman who lost her husband and was left with nothing, Wicked Local reports.

The work, part of a joint program between the school and Hand In Hand Ministries, is designed to expose students to different cultures and the life-changing effect their hard work can have on folks in need, whether it’s through housing, healthcare or education.

“I’d never been to Belize and it was kind of a new experience,” Thurber told the news site. “I wanted to go because we wouldn’t be going to touristy places and we would get a feel for the real culture of the people.”

“It was 80-90 degrees with 100 percent humidity most of the time,” he said. “It was very different climate than we are used to here.”

The students hauled materials, hammered, panted the home, which was constructed on concrete slabs to keep it high and dry during flooding. As part of the Hand in Hand project, the 72-year-old widow agreed to help on two builds, and she worked alongside the students throughout the construction.

“She couldn’t really hammer, she helped paint a lot,” Thurber said. “It was cool to see that even though she couldn’t do the hammering she still wanted to contribute.”

Students also attended a house blessing on the fourth day of their trip, and bought a mattress and supplies for the new home owner, Wicked Local reports.

“When she moved in she only had a mat and some clothes,” Thurber said. “It didn’t seem like a big deal to us, but it was life changing for her.”

Catholic schools are particularly effective in promoting community service, researchers at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture found. Political scientist David Campbell found “that private school students were more likely to engage in community service than their public school counterparts and that the Catholic schools primarily drove the effects” (The Content of Their Character, p. 122).

Students paid their own way for the trip, and raised funds to give out gifts to kids at a daycare for children with HIV. Thurber said the mission work, and his experiences with the local folks in Belize, offered lessons for students, as well.

“I was surprised by the happiness of the people there despite the fact that they had so little,” he said. “They seemed happier than we are.”

“They say you get more out of these trips than you give,” Thurber said. “It’s not a cliché. It actually happens.”

An Insight Series paper titled ‘A Simple Act of Charity? The Characteristics and Complexities of Charitable Giving in the United Kingdom‘ from the UK’s The Jubilee Centre is available here for teachers and principals who share the idea that charitable giving of one’s time and effort helps develop students’ moral and citizenship formation.

 

‘I can’t imagine’: High school students interview Vietnam vets to document living history

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Students at McDowell High School are getting in-depth lessons about the Vietnam War from North Carolina veterans who fought on the front lines.

Dozens of students spent a recent day interviewing numerous Vietnam War veterans from the community who served in different military units during the two decade long conflict that ended more than 40 years ago, WLOS reports.

“Vietnam is not a good place for me,” Frank, a veteran, told students. “I had an opportunity to go back and would not go back.”

The discussions were part of a broader school project to document the living history in the community, and students recorded their conversations with veterans, who brought in pictures, uniforms, and other memorabilia from their tours of duty.

Students learned how the war impacted soldiers, as well as how they were treated by their countrymen once they arrived home.

“We got eggs threw at us when we came back home. We were shunned by people in society, and we just came back and went back to work and never said anything about it for 40 years,” local combat vet Randy Hollifield said. “That’s the way we were. We never said anything.”

The lesson also included a walk to a veteran’s memorial at McDowell Senior Center, where students reflected on the sacrifices veterans made for their freedoms. Afterwards, students enjoyed lunch with veterans to share their thanks. Veterans also expressed gratitude students have an interest in a time in U.S. history that profoundly shaped their lives.

An ongoing controversy surrounding moral education is its potential threatens other academic subjects. Here the two efforts are combined effectively where the study of living history connects to the cost of personal sacrifice. Researchers at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture note “Moral thickness and thinness take form in several dimensions. The most prominent examples of ‘thickness’ drew upon sacred texts, traditions, and exemplars as their sources of moral authority and imagination” (The Content of Their Character, p. 279). Here living history connects personally with the students and their moral imagination.

Student Hayden Vaughn told WLOS the experience was eye-opening.

“Right now I’m stressing out about colleges for me to pick. I can’t even imagine knowing that I’m not going to go to college, I’m going to be sent off to war as soon as I graduate from high school,” he said. “I can’t imagine what that would feel like.”

Teachers and principals who want to emphasize the power of role models to help their students acquire strengthened moral and character formation can find learning activities and information at the UK’s The Jubilee Centre.  The learning activities can be found here.

 

Iowa college students help middle schoolers create videos to highlight their heroes

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What began as a conversation between Bettendorf Middle School teachers over lunch has evolved over the last three years into a program that allows students to highlight their heroes, under the mentorship of college students they admire.

“It all started with a lunch discussion among teachers about how factual the movie Apollo 13 is,” language arts teacher Lisa Barnes told Iowa Now. “It kind of snowballed from there, and we decided to ask students, ‘Who has a story that deserves a Hollywood blockbuster?’”

The project tasked eighth-graders with creating movie trailers for fictional films about real heroes, in their lives or in history. Some students looked to their relatives, others highlighted passengers on the Titanic, Holocaust survivors, and civil rights leaders.

In the first two years, students at the University of Iowa’s Department of Cinematic Arts watched the trailers and picked winners for different categories. The middle schoolers who won were invited to the UI campus, where they toured the school, sat in on classes, and ate lunch with cinema students.

This is a beautiful example of the informal and indirect means of teaching moral development. A fun assignment is reinforced with older mentors and role models to the end that heroes are honored and students inspired. Researchers at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture stress the importance of this informal articulation of a moral culture through the example of others.

Over the last two years, Bettendorf has issued Chromebooks to all students, and invested in better video editing and recording equipment. And this year, UI students expanded their role by visiting with the 150 Bettendorf students participating in the program to help them perfect their videos.

“I was blown away by how, at their age, they understood what images to use to pull at the heartstrings, what elements to use to create suspense, where to cut music out and where to put music in, and really just understanding how to entertain within a few minutes,” UI student Sam Kessie said.

Barnes told Iowa Now the time UI students spent with the middle schoolers not only helped students improve their fictional movie trailers, and gain skills they can apply in the real world, but also exposed them to opportunities some may not have considered otherwise.

“Every student left that room feeling as if they had done something well and there was something they could work on,” Barnes said of the UI mentorship.

“It opens their eyes to the fact that the University of Iowa is more than a football team,” she said. “That’s what many of them think at this point in their lives. But to go and see the things you can do in college opens your eyes to all the opportunities that exist and the world of careers available to you. It brings out a whole new side of college.”

Teachers and principals working to strengthen moral and citizenship formation in their students will find information, strategies and teacher lesson plans at the UK’s The Jubilee Centre.

Veterans teach Georgia students valuable lesson about respect after American flag senior prank

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A group of students at Georgia’s Heard County High School recently defaced the American flag with the spray-painted message “Seniors2K18!” but instead of reaching for the student handbook, principal Brent Tisdale reached out to local veterans.

Tisdale spoke with the five students involved with the stunt and instead of suspension opted to create a “teachable moment” they won’t forget, Fox 5 reports.

“My initial thought was five days out of school, and no prom and all of that, but that, I don’t think, was teaching them what we want to do, which was to value and understand other people’s feelings,” Tisdale said.

The principal told the news site that the students didn’t seem to fully understand the connection between the flag and veterans.

“So I called Chief Hannah here at the Franklin Police Department and said, ‘Hey, do you have any vets that are on shift right now that can come up here and talk to the kids?’” Tisdale said.

Brent Tisdale’s actions align themselves well with the best research on moral formation of students. Researchers at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture emphasize the importance of modeling positive relationships with others. They write, “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.”

A few firefighters and police soon arrived and took the boys to an empty room for a chat.

“We talked about how we chose to sign up and voluntarily defend that flag and their right to do what they did to it, as well as all of the family and friends and loved ones that have come home underneath that flag,” veteran Nikki Culpepper said, adding that she brought along a picture of Arlington Cemetery, where her grandfather is buried.

“Two of the young people – there were tears in their eyes – shook our hands, apologized, very remorseful,” Culpepper said.

In a Twitter message to parents, Tisdale wrote that while he doesn’t believe the students meant to offend veterans, they learned an important lesson about respect and community.

“I don’t believe their intention was to disrespect or insult the flag or country but that’s what happened,” he wrote. “Our community is great, all kids make mistakes, and it takes a village, folks. I hope we can work together, as a school and community, to continue to love our kids despite their mistakes.”

Teachers and principals working to strengthen moral and citizenship formation in their students will find information, strategies and teacher lesson plans at the UK’s The Jubilee Centre.

Ohio teen skips prom to help veterans on ‘Honor Flight’ to Washington, D.C.

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An Ohio teen skipped her prom to help military veterans travel to Washington, D.C. as part of the Honor Flight Columbus program, because she believed in the cause.

But the trip turned out a little differently than she expected, with one veteran in particular going out of his way to give thanks for the girl’s dedication.

Gahanna-Lincoln High School junior Hannah Secrist accompanied Korean War veteran Herb Cunningham and 88 other veterans on a trip to D.C. in late April, and flew back to Columbus on the same day as the prom.

Cunningham learned that Secrist gave up the special night to help with the trip, and decided to take matters into his own hands to show he appreciated the effort.

“At that point, I made an offer to Hannah that since she missed her prom, that later on when we get back to the Columbus airport, we might have our little prom dinner of our own,” Cunningham told WCMH.

Cunningham called his wife and arranged to have her meet them at the airport with a meal, and Secrist later posted pictures of their makeshift prom date on the airport floor that quickly went viral.

There is some debate whether mandatory service projects are as effective as voluntary service. But few question the value of service when there is a meaningful personal cost as is demonstrated in this story. Rural midwest schools tend to place a high value on military service. In these schools, researchers at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture found that 1 to 7 percent of the student body enlists with the encouragement of teachers and administrators.

“I’m so grateful,” Secrist said. “I’m grateful for what they (veterans) did in the wars for us and to take the time for me was really sweet.”

Honor Flight Columbus teams war veterans with volunteers to take senior vets on no-cost trips to Washington, D.C. to visit monuments, memorials and cemeteries dedicated to military service members. Last September, the organization ushered its 5,000th veteran to D.C. from central Ohio.

Cunningham said he appreciates the program, and he felt it’s important to highlight young people like Secrist who volunteer to help out in such a thoughtful way.

“I think sometimes we have a bit of a negative impression on young people today,” he said. “You see so many things in the news that can be discouraging, but in this particular case there was clear evidence of a right heart and a right spirit and it just was something that I couldn’t pass up, acknowledging and expressing my thanks in a very crazy way for what Hannah was willing to do.”

Teachers and principals working to strengthen moral and citizenship formation in their students will find information, Strategies and lesson plans at the UK’s The Jubilee Centre.

©2017 Advanced Studies in Culture

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