Character Education
Informational
Handbook & Guide
1. Staff Development
Goal: Provide staff development for
character education and establish a common language for
implementation of goals.
Activities:
• Provide teacher
training.
• Seek help from the NC Center
for Character Education, the Character Development Group, the Center
for the 4th and 5th R’s, or other national resources in
character education.
• Use the Character Education
Institute to access information, in particular the Character
Education Curriculum.
• Establish a county-wide
clearing house for distribution of material and information about
character education.
• Make a resource notebook
available to teachers with character education
resources/ideas.
• Make weekly character
lessons available to teachers, and use a character report form to
record implementation.
• Have each grade level turn
in a list of character activities to the principal.
• Set up a system to evaluate
the success of character education in reducing discipline problems,
improving student grades, and increasing participation in
extracurricular activities and parent/community
involvement.
2. Curriculum
development
Goal: Integrate character education
with the school’s academic environment.
Activities:
• Implement a dress code to
promote an environment conducive to learning.
• Tie a school-wide discipline
program to character traits and use character language in
disciplinary conferences.
• Incorporate a leadership
course into the curriculum. (High School)
• Make conflict resolution and
citizenship part of the psychology curriculum, and make psychology a
required course. (High School)
• Have students and teachers
work on and agree to a code of behavior for schools and classrooms.
(Elementary school)
• Provide every student with
an Agenda mate. (High School)
Goal: Integrate character education
with the curriculum.
Activities:
• Have guidance counselors
visit classrooms with lessons on each trait.
• Hold seminars on the
relationships between that month’s character trait and a
literature or art piece.
• Incorporate a section on
good sportsmanship into the Wellness/Physical education
curriculum.
• Make teams responsible for
developing school-wide programs/activities that tie in with each
monthly trait.
• Weave the question,
“What is the right thing to do?” into stories and social
studies units.
• Define the difference
between heroes and celebrities and study the positive traits of
heroes through social studies and whole language units.
• Re-write literature (e.g.,
How would the Cinderella story turn out if the characters had valued
our character traits?).
• Have students write
poems/essays/short stories on character.
• Show videotapes that deal
with character traits.
• Read stories from The Book
of Virtues, Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul, or any other
collection of character-centered literature.
• Select outstanding authors,
athletes, scientists, and historians in the various disciplines and
have students write research papers recognizing their accomplishments
and achievements.
• Have journal writing focus
on traits.
• Have students find newspaper
articles that involve traits.
• Tailor art class assignments
to the trait of the month.
• Let students select a friend
and make up a good character poster about that friend.
3. Building Community
Ties
Goal: Gauge and build community
consensus on common values and recruit community support for
character education initiatives.
Activities:
• Procure funding through
financial resources, such as private/public foundation, state/federal
government grants, U.S. Department of Education (e.g., Partnerships
in Character Education Pilot Projects).
• Invite guest speakers to
talk to students in the classroom about how they have integrated the
concept of character into their adult lives.
• Invite speakers to present
keynote speeches about character at major events (e.g., sports
banquets, graduations, awards ceremonies).
• For high schools: bring
alumni back to talk about successful transitions to college, work, or
military.
• During regular assemblies,
feature guest speakers from the community who can speak about the
trait for that month in particular.
• For elementary schools: Have
community members come into classrooms and read stories focusing on
character.
Goal: Promote partnerships between
parents, schools, community, businesses, and faith
communities.
Activities:
• Develop a scrapbook
recognizing alumni, reflecting the school’s history and
accomplishments.
• Seek and encourage media
coverage promoting character education.
• Involve the local newspaper
and other media to help reward the school’s citizen of the
quarter and other honorees.
• Make a success portfolio of
the school’s character education efforts available for public
viewing.
• Enlist businesses to help
publicize and promote character development efforts by sponsoring
prizes, billboards, special sections in local newspapers,
etc.
4. Including
Parents
Goal: Involve parents in the
character education program.
Activities:
• Send home an informational
packet on the premises and expectations of the character
program.
• At the beginning of the
year, have both parents and students sign a pledge to build
character.
• Devote an entire
parent-teacher organization meeting to the character development
program.
• Discuss character as well as
academics in parent-teacher conferences.
• Send teacher letters home to
parents monthly.
• Send newsletters on the
character education program home to parents.
5. Service
Learning
Goal: Integrate character education
and service learning.
Activities:
• Require students to obtain a
certain number of hours of community service.
• Focus field trips and
projects on character traits (e.g., for “citizenship,”
sponsor a stream cleanup).
• Offer “cool
character” awards to organizations students work
with.
• Pair high schools with
elementary schools for tutoring, holiday parties, and other
projects.
6. Honoring Students of
Character
Goal: Publicly recognize the work
and achievements of students.
Activities:
• Give a citizenship award to
selected students.
• Recognize citizenship award
recipients at the end-of-year awards ceremony.
• Have the honors board
recognize “Kids of Character.”
• Give students and parents
who are nominated for showing the character trait of the month the
opportunity to have lunch with the principal.
• Institute a “Random
Acts of Kindness” program that gives awards for spontaneous good
acts.
• Give out certificates for
exemplary character at Class Night.
• Display photos of students
of the month for each class on a bulletin board.
• Have a “Citizen of the
Week (or Month)” announced by the principal.
• Give the “Student of
the Week” special privileges (e.g., a week of no uniform, sports
event or ice cream passes, etc.).
• Include anecdotes of
commendable student behavior in the school newspaper.
• Recognize students of
exemplary character by letting them give the morning
announcements.
• Send home cards of praise to
recognize students who demonstrate good character.
• Give out awards based on the
school mascot for remembering the Quote of the Week.
• Hold a special party for
BUGS—“Being Unusually Good Students”—award
recipients.
• Set up a system under which
students are given a ticket when caught demonstrating character;
these tickets can grant the student special privileges, or they can
be redeemed to purchase small items.
7. School
Environment
Goal: Incorporate character traits,
school motto, and character quotes into the environment of the
school.
Activities:
Announcements
• Include a focus on the
character trait in the morning announcements.
• Include a “Thought for
the Day” based on that day’s character trait in the
announcements.
• Encourage students to create
thoughts for the day around the character trait of the month, and
select some to be read during morning announcements.
• If your district produces a
“character newspaper,” read stories from it over the
intercom.
• Have the principal or
members of the student council read the Quote of the Week over the
intercom.
Art/Creative
projects
• Have students write and
produce plays emphasizing the traits for each month (these can draw
good publicity—even TV coverage!).
• Have students create a
character “quilt” out of paper.
• Have students create a
“chain of kindness”—a paper chain with acts of
kindness written on each link.
• Have art classes paint
character quotes on the walls.
• Hold a poster contest for
posters to be displayed in homerooms.
• Sponsor an essay contest on
the importance of character traits.
• Sponsor a contest in which
students write and perform songs based on the character
traits.
Displays
• Display banners, slogans,
and quotes related to the traits in all areas of the
school.
• Display character quotes in
the teachers’ lounges, on lunch menus, computer lab screen
savers, etc.
• Publish lunch menus with
character quotes.
• Have students and teachers
work together on classroom displays based on the trait for the
month.
• Change prominent bulletin
boards monthly to reflect character traits.
• Put up a “Great Wall of
Character” to display quotes, photos of students, and other
important character-related items.
• Put the trait of the month
on the school’s marquee.
Special events
• Have the yearbook feature a
page that focuses on the character traits.
• Hold theme days (e.g.,
encourage wearing red, white, and blue on “Citizenship
Day”).
• Focus your graduation or
end-of-year ceremony on character.
Pages 23-28 adapted from Operating
Manual for Character Education Programs. Character Development
Publishing. 2001.
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