Character Education Transforms School
John Heenan
The success of the Kew Primary School, Invercargill, in implementing an effective approach to character education has been recognized by the New Zealand Foundation for Character Education Incorporated. This decile three school which serves a lower socio-economic community in which there is significant unemployment and a high proportion of one-parent families becomes the first school to be awarded the use of the Foundation's registered logo.
The logo symbolizes a commitment to the development of character through teaching, enforcing, advocating and modelling honesty and truthfulness, kindness, consideration and concern for others, compassion, obedience, responsibility, respect and duty.
The accreditation process involved the school board of trustees and principal meeting criteria for effective character education, written statements from visitors to the school and an independent character education review undertaken by a principal from outside the region.
Kew School is able to demonstrate a dramatic change in school culture, overwhelming parent and community support for character education, a co-operative teaching and learning environment and enthusiasm among the staff for the difficult task of teaching.
The story of the transformation of the school's culture through the restoration of character education will be an encouragement to all schools.
The transformation began when the principal and the staff acknowledged that they were no longer prepared to tolerate disruptive behaviour that prevented other children from learning and sapped the marrow of their energy.
Although great efforts had been made to modify student behaviour little, if anything, changed.
The principal found that he spent a disproportionate amount of his time intervening and attempting to manage behaviour. For him the situation became one of chaos. As a result he began to question why behaviour that so obviously detracted from the effectiveness of the school was tolerated.
The watershed came when it was realised that the pursuit of tolerance, a concept that featured prominently in the school's mission statement, was a barrier to the management of behaviour.
Tolerance is not always a virtue. There is some behaviour that ought never to be tolerated.
The school had deliberately highlighted tolerance in its mission statement because it believed that tolerance was the correct concept to be seen to be promoting. The implications of elevating tolerance to a virtue higher than right or acceptable behaviour had never been examined.
The teachers found that they were compromised by the pursuit of tolerance. On the one hand they felt obliged to talk tolerance but on the other they felt undermined by behaviour that they found intolerable.
When faced with concrete situations, like for example, when a child was bullied or intimidated, another's property was stolen, or a child was insolent to the teacher, the teacher responded by insisting that there are objective standards of behaviour.
The staff found that consistency between their words and their actions became a casualty of the school's mission for tolerance.
The sense of being compromised and the inconsistency between theory and practice combined to produce a detrimental influence on staff morale.
- Teachers felt that, at least by implication, they were expected to be able to manage even the most intolerable behaviour
- Failure to control incidents of bad behaviour left teachers feeling inadequate and unworthy
- Teachers felt that if they were to model tolerance then they had to be prepared to accept any behaviour that was thrown at them
- Teachers began to feel incompetent and tempted to refrain from responding to unacceptable or disruptive behaviour
- Teachers handed control problems to the principal who spent significant time on issues of behaviour
Once the principal and the staff recognised their dilemma the principal began searching for alternatives. The search started by posing such questions as:
- Why do we do follow practices and procedures that do not work?
- What are the behaviours that we want to foster and encourage?
- How can we achieve these?
The principal and his staff were insistent that they did not want a quick fix, a band-aid or a solution with a shelf life.
The alternative had to:
- Have substance rather than form
- Be sustainable over time
- Have been proven in practice
- Preserve the dignity of children, the staff and the school community
The principal sought an environment in which teachers and students would be able to work happily and effectively together. He wanted to establish clear boundaries for behaviour and an awareness that there are consequences when boundaries are crossed.
It was his contention that the school had to be able to say:
- This behaviour is acceptable or this behaviour is unacceptable
- This behaviour is appropriate or this behaviour is inappropriate
- This behaviour is wrong and will not be tolerated
The search for an alternative led to a re-examination of one of the two historical objectives of education - the development of character.
Kew School found that the approach to character education presented by "Building Character through Cornerstone Values" offered all that was sought. The approach was based on a clear rationale rather than strategies, it was sustainable over time, it had been proven in practice and preserved the dignity of children, the staff and the school community.
Cornerstone Values was not a programme but an approach to character education that with a limited teaching content influenced everything that happened in the school. It was not another programme to be added on but principles and practices to be infused into all aspect of the life and the work of the school.
The contention of the Cornerstone Values approach that character is best learned by being experienced and modelled and that core values, like, for example, respect and responsibility, are communicated through relationships had immediate appeal.
From the beginning a team approach became the hallmark of the transformation of the school's culture. Everyone - principal, trustees, teachers, support staff, students and parents - was involved in developing a new school culture. Together they established a shared expectation for behaviour and problem solving.
Perhaps the greatest encouragement to the principal, staff and trustees came from the results of a parent / caregiver survey of their attitudes and aspirations for character education. The school used the Cornerstone Values Questionnaire which had the objective of obtaining quantitative information concerning:
- The type of person Kew parents and caregivers wanted their children to be
- The importance placed on the teaching of values by Kew School
- The values and traits of character to be emphasised by Kew School
- The inclination to send children to Kew School because of the values taught
The results showed that the aspirations of the principal staff and trustees where overwhelmingly endorsed by parents and caregivers.
In the survey, which had a 72.4% response rate, 94.58% of parents and caregivers considered it essential or very important for the school to teach moral values and develop character. The survey also showed that the parents placed greater importance on good character than on academic achievement.
In response to the question, What kind of person would you like your child to be?
Parents and caregivers ranked, on a five-point scale (1 essential to 5 not important), the following qualities as essential.
| Honest and truthful | 94.05% |
| Willing to be accountable for own behaviour | 90.48% |
| Respectful | 90.48% |
| Responsible and dependable | 80.95% |
| Polite, courteous, good-mannered | 79.76% |
| Kind and considerate | 71.43% |
When the second highest ranking of 2 was added the result becomes.
| Honest and truthful | 100% |
| Willing to be accountable for own behaviour | 100% |
| Respectful | 98.81% |
| Responsible and dependable | 97.62% |
| Polite, courteous, good-mannered | 97.62% |
| Kind and considerate | 97.62% |
The survey results provided the school with a powerful mandate for the restoration of character education. At the same time the strength of the mandate enabled the school to establish a code of conduct knowing that it would be supported by the principal, staff, trustees and parents and caregivers.
Over time the culture of the school gradually changed. The preoccupation with unacceptable behaviour faded and the principal found that issues of behaviour required less time and issues were resolved at the level at which they occurred. The school became busier but was more easily managed. Staff morale became positive and visitors to the school began to comment on its tone and friendliness.
In terms of funding there were unexpected but significant benefits. The implementation of character education did not involve great expenditure. The resources were already in the school. It was only a matter of using them and the curriculum a little differently. A comparatively small set of objective values informed and directed everything that happened in the school.
The school found that there was no need to spend scarce financial resources on the purchase of external services to assist with the management of behaviour. Expenditure on external support could be focussed upon improving the effectiveness of teaching and learning.
The school had transformed it's culture by coming to the understanding that the best values education is that which inspires students by making them keenly aware that it is their own character that is at stake.
A fifteen minute video, "In Search of an Alternative," in which the Kew School principal, Lester Dean, discusses the implementation of character education, is available from the New Zealand Foundation For Character Education, PO Box 357, Alexandra 9340. The cost, including postage is $15
