Instilling Character

I’ve been giggling lately at how often we use computer metaphors. I try to imagine someone from another century trying to understand what “reboot the system” might mean. That’s exactly what some Georgians want for their state’s character program.

Georgia has been implementing a character-building curriculum called Character First! Since 2000, but there is a public outcry that the program is not going the distance. Critics say the push for character stops at the doors of some schools, and that the programs aren’t being followed through with in the classrooms.

It seems from the quotes in the Augusta chronicle that character building gets an initial, emotional response, but the pressure to sustain that momentum is quick to die away. It’s easy to see how the pressure of test scores and evaluated programs can usurp something vague and unable to be tested like “character”.

Tony Warenzak from Richmond County is offering his own model that he hopes to bring into schools in a much more meaningful, long-lasting way.

"For us, character is more than just a word on a marquee. It's a way of life. It's a paradigm that everybody buys into, with one voice."

There is more than just an epidemic of bullying in schools at stake when children learn values like respect, fairness, honesty and compassion. These are the seeds of the inheritors of our democracy, and to sustain it (let alone make it greater) requires a view that looks beyond one’s individual needs and wants and sees a greater good, a society that benefits from honesty, a neighbor who benefits from compassion, or a business that thrives because of an employer’s fairness.

Making a program, however, that instills good character traits is not as simple as planting a seed or passing a test. I particularly like Mr. Warenzak’s “inside out” approach of letting classrooms and teachers and schools develop their own words and ways of conveying them—a way to own the process as children will eventually be responsible to their communities and actions therein.

In the end, character building programs do not really build character—only people can do that. And there are times to be meek or defer to an adult, and there are times when we should stand up for ourselves or someone else. It can, though, help kids recognize when they have a choice between something right or wrong. That is until they go to college and take a class on moral relativism.