Archive for Thursday, September 11, 2008

Program to stress compassion, kindness to others

By Nicole Kelley

September 11, 2008

Kindness and compassion are often in short supply, especially when it comes to teenagers who find themselves in the challenging self-discovery process of their middle and high school years.

With that in mind, Bonner Springs High School's character education instructor Cindy Hayes is bringing back the Rachel's Challenge program this year for not only the students of the high school and Clark Middle School, but for the entire community.

"We're just trying to get them to treat each other better and to be nice and treat people better in their everyday lives," Hayes said.

Rachel's Challenge was started in memory of Rachel Scott, the first person killed in the Columbine High School shooting on April 20, 1999. The program was started by Rachel's father, Darrell Scott, as a way to spread Rachel's message of treating others with kindness and compassion.

The first portion of the three-part program was presented in Bonner Springs two years ago. Hayes said that program focused on Rachel's background that included several volumes of journals that were found after her death outlining her goal to go out of her way to help misfits or new people feel welcome in her school.

"You could hear a pin drop," Hayes said of the student's silence as they listened to the first Rachel's Challenge presentation. "They were just so quiet. They came back to the school with a really good attitude."

This year's presentation will consist of three parts all on Wednesday, Sept. 17. Clark Middle School students will have an assembly at 8 a.m. and Bonner Springs High School students will have an assembly at 9:30 a.m. The Bonner Springs community is invited for a free, public presentation at 7 p.m. at the Y.M.C.A gym, located between the middle and high schools.

Hayes discovered the Rachel's Challenge program while attending a conference a few years ago in St. Louis. Darrell Scott spoke at the conference and Hayes said she thought, "This is fabulous. I have to bring this to the school."

She approached the district's administrators and she said they all welcomed the program immediately. While the district has not had any concerns of future incidents such as what happened at Columbine, Hayes said the focus was on character development, which is important in any child's life in any situation.

"We're not having (the program) here because of issues or problems in the district," Hayes said. "We're bringing them here to give (the students) other outside influences and this is one of the best I've been able to find. This is something to enhance their education."

As the character-education instructor at the high school, Hayes said schools across the country have a mandate to bring in more character development programs and activities.

"A lot of kids just really don't have people at home that care and their home life doesn't include kindness and compassion," Hayes said. "We want to go beyond what they would get at home and teach them how to treat each other nice. This district wants to make sure we are including everybody and giving everybody the best opportunity we can for a well-rounded future."

Comments

  1. Hifi (anonymous) says…

    Statements in this article reinforce the myths of character education.

    I am continually baffled at how character education - which on the surface of it sounds great - can win funding and accolades while never demonstrating evidence of either need or results. Is all that is required for adoption is a slick marketing campaign to the politicians and school boards in order to acquire popular support (complete with entreaties to emotional and fear issues and a healthy dose of language from pop psychology and a wink to Christian religion) and then you are done? Who could object to "character education", right?

    Moreover, the phrase functions wonderfully as political catchword. Yet, even President Bush, asks that "the adoption of public programs should be results-based". In that view, the adoption of character education in our community should be seriously questioned.

    Research on the subject has yet to turn up one peer-reviewed study demonstrating any scientifically validated need for or result from character education programs. On the other hand, flaws in the "research" showing "correlations" are well documented. The many references in this article are to studies with no more basis than subjective feedback (usually surveys) from vested participants. There is really no excuse for a reputable study to not have been conducted at this point - especially, when considering that character education has no basis in accepted educational theory in the first place. Such a dearth of validity makes it hard to just give it the benefit of the doubt.

    What's worse, the actual peer reviewed studies that have been done, show character education programs to be not only ineffectual, but "negatively correlated" with results!

    Today's character education would seem to fall right in line with a string of similarly flawed and famously failed school programs: "religious education", "moral education", "values education"... However, not to be deterred by lack of results, character education programs abound, forging ahead each trotting out entirely different lists of politically-entangled core values and means for implementing them! Their dissensions from one another's goals and criticisms of each other is enlightening.

    Certainly, it is unfortunate for the entire field that there is no valid psychological definition of "character". The term has no clinical meaning; which probably also explains why there can be no way to measure if an individual has a deficit of it, or if a school program can improve it. If there was anything quantifiable, one might be able to judge the benefit of one approach over the other - or any benefit at all.

  2. Hifi (anonymous) says…

    It is telling, perhaps, that the one thing these competing programs all agree on is that the end goal is the child or employee's compliance with authority and conformity with conservative values. Is that how we wish to define the greatness of America's "national character" these days? What about the spirit of inquiry, independence and innovation that defines the true character of a great nation? On the much-lauded "Magic School Bus" TV show, the class slogan is "Take Chances, Make Mistakes. Get Messy!", just the opposite of the stated goals on character education lists.

    Sure, on the face of it, who wouldn't be in favor of something as grand sounding as character education? Yet, slick marketing aside, that is not enough to justify exposing our children to such an unknown, ideologically-driven quantity. As far as the schools go, even if character education could be proven to achieve its conservative aims, public education has no business taking the culture wars to children.

    What should schools be focusing on as root causes, instead? The best academic minds in the business recommend focusing on creating an even playing field by correcting antagonistic factors in the social structure; ensuring a fair, well-funded educational environment, providing solid, verifiable facts; developing the critical thinking skills to separate the "angles" and hype from the truth; and then let students decide for themselves what kind of society they will create for themselves.

    In sum, character education sure sounds good - if only it worked. Isn't it time for some real investigative reporting into the claims of character education, instead of all the cheerleading?

    A 2007 report released under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Education found that vast majority of character education programs have failed to prove their effectiveness.
    http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/reports/ch...

    For essays and references, please see http://members.cox.net/patriotismfora...
    Anthologized in "Taking Sides: Issues in Educational Practice", 2008 McGraw-Hill/CLS

    --
    "Teachers and schools tend to mistake good behavior for good character. What they prize is docility, suggestibility; the child who will do what he is told; or even better, the child who will do what is wanted without even having to be told. They value most in children what children least value in themselves. small wonder that their effort to build character is such a failure; they don't know it when they see it."
    --
    How Children Fail, John Holt