“We’ve done a really good job over the last few years teaching our students how to be compassionate, be respectful and so on,” said Chrissy Hutzelman, character education coordinator. “But at the same time, we’ve noticed a lack of commitment and initiative, so we wanted to find ways to reinforce the idea that if you commit to something, you stick with it and give it 100 percent of your effort.
“When the going gets tough, the tough don’t quit.”
So Hutzelman and the Character Education committee brainstormed a list of positive performance characteristics and decided to focus on confidence, creativity, effort, perseverance and organization.
The next step is to create lesson plans for teachers to introduce these traits to their students, Hutzelman said, and with the final quarter coming up, the timing will help battle spring fever.
“We’re hoping that rolling these out now will help the students buckle down for the end of the school year,” she said.
Inspired by the dragon Figment, a Disney World mascot for its Journey Into Imagination attraction at Epcot Center, Hutzelman will begin the roll-out with a contest for students to create characters to be emblems for each new trait.
“This will give the kids some ownership of the program and also help them remember it more,” she said.
The National Schools of Character program is administered by the Washington, D.C., based Character Education Partnership, hosts of the National Forum on Character Education.
CEP selected 50 national finalists from a pool of 140 applicants. For the next two months, they will undergo a rigorous national evaluation process that will include detailed analysis of the impact of character education on academics, student behavior, and school culture, according to a CEP press release.
The 50 finalists represent 19 states and include two school districts, 36 elementary schools, five middle schools, four high schools, and three mixed-grades schools consisting of K-8.
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