Promising Practices in Character Education Awards

Today I had the wonderful privilege of going to the state capitol, with our principal and a fellow teacher, to receive an award on behalf of our school. It was an award from the state recognizing promising practices in character education.

CONGRATULATIONS SFAS STAFF AND STUDENTS ON THIS FANTASTIC RECOGNITION!

Below is some information about our "promising practice."

Kids Club is our school-wide, K-5, practice which brings our school together as a community. It is a staple to our program with the goal of building strong, lasting relationships between grade levels. With the close-knit environment that Kids Club promotes, we are able to celebrate students’ achievements, review school expectations, and discuss issues that we can problem solve as a group. During the past year, we have focused on adding a character education component to our meetings. We focus on one trait per week. Teachers interactively model, and students hear stories, see plays, and engage in meaningful conversation regarding the specific focus trait. The student population leaves our gathering knowing how to display that trait, and most importantly, why it is important.

The practice of Kids Club contributes to character development by creating a caring school community, and a sense of belonging for each student. Within Kids Club we also focus specifically on character education traits, such as respect, trustworthiness, honesty, compassion, diligence, and integrity. With our safe community established, we are able to ask students to demonstrate good character traits, while also watching other students for positive behavior too. Those students that are “caught being good” during the school week are recognized during Kids Club. For example, while teaching the trait of honesty, the first week was explaining the trait and discussing how to show it, and why it’s important. The second and third week (of four) had a review of the trait, stories and discussion, as well as interactive modeling for using the trait. Also, an assignment was given to the entire student body; when they observed someone demonstrating that trait, the observer would discuss the occurrence with a faculty member. Then the observer would put the name of the honest student on a leaf for our “honesty tree.” Finally, during our fourth week of Kids Club we celebrated and recognized those students whose names were on the tree.