Character

Education

Character Education
By, Kristin Lilley

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 What is Character Education?
Goal of Character Education: Produce students of good character who will become productive,
responsible citizens who will contribute positively to our society.

Graphic adapted from Niehues, L. (2020).

Character Education is the thoughtful act of teaching students from a young age how to treat
others and be an upstanding citizen. Niehues (2020) suggests that students who possess
strong character skills show improvement in academic achievement, reduction in
misbehavior, and improved social interactions with others. The six pillars of character
education as discussed by Laurie Niehues in A Comprehensive Approach to Character
Education are trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and
citizenship (Niehues, 2020).

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The Character Education Partnership (2020) describes eleven principles of effective
character development. Principle 1 is to define and implement the core values in the
culture of the school. Principle 2 is to define “character” comprehensively to include
thinking, feeling, and doing. Principle 3 says the school uses a comprehensive,
intentional, and proactive approach to develop character. Principle 4 says the school
creates a caring community. Principle 5 provides students with opportunities for
moral action. Principle 6 offers a meaningful and challenging academic curriculum
that respects all learners, develops their character, and helps them to succeed.
Principle 7 fosters students’ self-motivation. Principle 8 says all staff shares the
responsibility for developing, implementing, and modeling character. Principle 9
suggests that effective character education fosters shared moral leadership and long-
range support of the character education initiative. Principle 10 says the school
engages families and community as partners in the character initiative. Finally,
principle 11 says the school assesses its implementation of character education, its
culture and climate, and the character growth of students on a regular basis. When
these principles are in place, an effective character education program can exist in a
school.

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 Leader in Me
See-Do-Get Cycle

5 Paradigms to SEE
Differently

I believe The Leader in Me Program is the perfect Character Education Program for our
school. It is a CASEL-Endorsed Social-Emotional Learning Program designed to support
teachers, students, and families in developing the whole child.
Leader in Me is based on a theory of change known as the See-Do-Get Cycle. When you
change the way you see things, it influences what you do and the results you get
(www.leaderinme.org, 2021). The Leader in Me incorporates 5 paradigms to see things
differently. They are everyone can be a leader, everyone has genius, change starts with me,
educators empower students to lead their own learning, and develop the whole person.
Stephen Covey, author of The Leader in Me, said “If you want small changes, work on your
behavior; if you want quantum-leap changes, work on your paradigms” (Covey, 2014).

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 Vision & Mission
Our School Vision
Set a clear purpose, build meaningful relationships, implement
collaborative planning, build unwavering engagement, have focused
outcomes, celebrate successes, and praise effort.
Our School Mission
We take responsibility to ensure that all educators, parents, and
students learn at high levels and reach their fullest potential, while
immersed and nurtured in a community that creates once in a lifetime
experience.

The Vision of Leader in Me

-Empowering educations to teach leadership to every student
-Create a culture of student empowerment
-Align systems to drive results in academics.

Our school vision is to set a clear purpose, build meaningful relationships, implement
collaborative planning, build unwavering engagement, have focused outcomes,
celebrate successes, and praise effort. Our school mission states we take
responsibility to ensure that all educators, parents, and students learn at high levels
and reach their fullest potential, while immersed and nurtured in a community that
creates once in a lifetime experience. Our mission and visions of Vassiliadis
Elementary School aligns with the vision of the Leader in Me because this program
embodies a holistic approach to education. The Leader in Me approach empowers
educators with effective practices and tools to teach leadership skills to every student,
create a culture of student empowerment, and align systems to drive results in
academics.

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 Data Driven Decision-Making

School Improvement Plan

-Increase Academic Achievement
-Develop Social-Emotional Development

The Pandemic’s Impact on Mental Health

Our school improvement plan goals include increasing student academic

achievement in math and reading and continuing to develop and refine our MTSS
(multi-tiered systems of support) for academic and emotional support. Leader in Me
(2021) suggests rather than educators focusing solely on academic achievement, the
Leader in Me program supports the paradigm shift of educators and families
partnering to develop the whole person. This includes empowering leaders to lead
their own conferences, advocating for their learning, and setting goals for
achievement.

We all know the pandemic has had negative impacts on our students both
academically and emotionally. The Leader in Me program can help to support the
social-emotional environment for our staff and students. Leader in Me develops a
high-trust school culture where every person’s voice is head and their potential is
affirmed (www.leaderinme.org, 2021).

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 Components of Leader in Me
Leadership
- 7 Habits of Happy Kids

Culture
- Embed the Habits into the culture of the school

Academics
- Focus on the wildly important
- Act on Measures
- Keep a Compelling Scoreboard
- Create Accountability

Sustainability
- Involve all stakeholders to impact a wider community

The four components of the Leader in Me program is Leadership, Culture,

Academics, and Sustainability. First, the students will learn the 7 Habits of Happy
Kids. These are Be Proactive, Begin with the End in Mind, Put First Things First,
Think Win-Win, Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood, Synergize, and
Sharpen the Saw (Covey, 2008). Teachers take the time to teach each habit in
isolation and provide many examples and real-world scenarios for students to build
real understanding of the habits. Students begin to embed each habit into their daily
routines.
Next is culture. Students are not the only ones that will exhibit the habits daily, but
teachers will too. Teachers will use the vocabulary throughout the day, praise
students that are displaying leadership habits, and make a cognitive decision to
discuss the habits with their students and live the habits in their lives as well.
The third component is academics. The Leader in Me program has four academic
disciplines. First, focus on the wildly important, which just means to set goals for
yourself. Second is to act on lead measures. This means to choose what acts will help
you to get to your goals, then act on those. Third is to keep a compelling scoreboard.
Keep track of where you are going and where you have come from. Data boards help
to propel students in the right directions. Finally, create accountability is the fourth

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discipline. Have a team to help hold each other accountable. This can be a team in the
class, the whole class, or the whole school (www.leaderinme.org, 2021).
The last component is sustainability. Involving all stakeholders, students, teachers, and
parents, creates a wide impact on the community. Parents will become involved in the
habits to help develop the whole child at home and at school.

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 1 Build Self-Confidence

2 Increase Student Responsibility

3 Engage in Teamwork

Goals of 4 Take Initiative

Leader in Me
5 Increase Creativity

6 Develop Leaders

7 Build Community

The goals of the Leader in Me are to build self-confidence, increase student

responsibility, engage in teamwork, take initiative, increase creativity, develop
leaders, and build community. The data that will be collected to determine if these
goals are being met will include school-wide surveys, behavior incident reports, and
growth reports for math and reading formative assessments.

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 Semi-Annual Social-
Emotional Surveys

Quarterly Formative
Data Collection Assessments in Math and
Reading

Behavior Incident
Reports

There are three data collection tools we will use to determine the effectiveness of the
Leader in Me program.
The first is semi-annual Social-Emotional Surveys. These surveys will be
administered to the teachers and students and ask questions about leadership, self-
confidence, responsibility, problem solving skills, and community. The results of
these surveys will allow the teachers, students, and administration to set goals for the
program. For example, if teachers report that they do not feel their students show
initiative in completing and turning in their homework, we can focus more on the 7
habits that relate to that area of concern. This is a part of the sustainability of the
program. The vocabulary and habits need to be a continuous discussion to see results.
We will also look at quarterly formative assessments in math and reading to
determine if student academic achievement has improved following the
implementation of the program.
Finally, checking on the behavior incidents reports and determining trends of
behaviors incidents can help us to find areas for goal setting.

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 Implementation

Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4

Teacher Weekly Lessons Leadership Night Sustainability

Professional on the 7 Habits for Family • Leader of the
Development • Timeline of 8 Weeks Engagement: Month Awards
• 7-Hour Professional (including the WHY • Students teach • Consistent use of
Development on introduction week) their parents about vocabulary
the Components Leader in Me • Weekly Leadership
of Leader in Me • Timeline: Following Affirmations
the 8-week • Goal-setting with
introduction of the students
Habits to students throughout the
year

The first step to implementing Leader in Me within the school is to provide

professional development for all staff on campus. This professional development is a
7-hour PD that will be broken into 2 sessions. Teachers will learn about the Leader in
Me, the 7 Habits, the academic disciplines, and have opportunities to plan to
implementation within their classrooms.
Following the staff professional development, students will learn the 7 habits.
Teachers will be provided 7 Habits of Happy Kids (2008) and lesson plans to teach
the habits over the course of the week. Students will role-play, read scenarios, and
reflect on their own actions. This 8-week timeline includes a “WHY do we want to
be leaders” introduction week.
Step 3 is to embed the Leader in Me into the school culture and involve all
stakeholders. This will include a Leadership Night where parents are welcomed on
campus to learn all about the Leader in Me from their students. The children will
teach their parents about the habits and ask for their support in helping them be
leaders everyday.
Finally, step 4 is to sustain the program. This will be done through monthly
leadership awards, given to students that are exhibiting the leadership traits in their
classrooms and at home. Teachers, students, and parents will consistently use the

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vocabulary of Leader in Me to reinforce positive behaviors. The school counselor will
share weekly leadership quotes and affirmations to remind students to set goals for
themselves and be leaders everyday. Additionally, goal-setting will take place with
students throughout the year to reinforce the four academic disciplines of focus on the
wildly important, act on lead measures, keep a compelling scoreboard, and create
accountability (www.leaderinme.org, 2021).

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 Comparison to Other Programs
Project Wisdom 8 Keys of Excellence
3-Step Approach Teaches the 8 Keys of Excellence
For Campus Integrity
- Daily Messages to Share Speak with Good Purpose
with Your Campus Commitment
Flexibility
For Classroom Failure Leads to Success
- Easy-to-implement lesson This Is It
plans. Student journals to reflect. Ownership
Balance
For Educators
- Thought-provoking Develops Study Strategies for
messages to promote ethical and Learning
caring leaders, boost morale, and
improve classroom management. Builds Character, Confidence, Grit
& Leadership

Two other character education programs I found are Project Wisdom and the 8 Keys
of Excellence. Project Wisdom uses a 3-step approach to build community: for the
campus, for the classroom, and for the educator (www.projectwisdom.com, 2021).
The campus is impacted through daily messages and affirmations that are shared with
all students. The classroom is impacted through lesson plans and student workbooks
where they can reflect on daily lessons. The educators are impacted through thought-
provoking messages to promote ethical and caring leaders, boost morale, and
improve classroom management. The 8 Keys of Excellence is very similar to the
Leader in Me. They use habits, which they call keys, to teach students how to be
leaders of themselves. These keys of excellence are integrity, speak with good
purpose, commitment, flexibility, failure leads to success, this is it, ownership, and
balance (8keys.org, 2021). Although these are great programs that have impacted
many schools across the country, I believe Leader in Me is more beneficial to my
student population. I like that Leader in Me (2014) uses the 7 Habits of Happy Kids
(2008), which is an engaging picture book, to teach the habits of great leaders. For
my elementary school, the engaging characters and stories helps to establish meaning
for the students.

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 Managing Challenges

Possible Challenges
oTeacher and Student Buy-In

oInterest Fizzling Out

With the implementation of any new program, there will be some challenges. The
first is teacher and student buy-in. It is important to discuss the implementation of
new programs with stakeholders to get feedback and increase buy in. By developing
trust in and through the process, participating stakeholders are more likely to be
invested in the outcomes and actively engaged in the selection, development, and
implementation of improvement plans and strategies that create lasting change
(Cuiccio, 2018). Engaging students through the learning process is how we can
manage the challenge of student buy-in. Modeling through role play, reading real-
world scenarios, and allowing time to process are ways we can support students
during the learning process of this new program.
Another challenge we may face is interest in the program fizzling out once the
lessons have been taught. Teachers can continue to think of create ways to remind
students of their leadership skills, reinforce the usage of the vocabulary throughout
the year, and set goals with students to maintain interest in the process. Setting
attainable goals and revising them often is one way to keep students interested. The
academic discipline of keeping a compelling scoreboard is going to be beneficial to
keeping students engaged.

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 As you can see, Leader in Me will be
a great Character Development
Program for Vassiliadis Elementary
School as it:

Thank You o ALIGNS TO OUR MISSION

AND VISION
for Your o BUILDS THE WHOLE CHILD
Time o SUPPORTS OUR SCHOOL
IMPROVEMENT PLAN
o IS ENGAGING FOR OUR K-5
STUDENTS

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 References
8 Keys of Excellence. (2021, April 17). School programs. https://8keys.org/school-program/
Character Education Partnership. (2000). 11 principles of effective character education: A framework for school
success. Author.
Covey, S. (2008). The 7 habits of happy kids. New York: Franklin Covey/Simon & Schuster.
Covey, S. (2014). Leader in me. Riverside: Simon & Schuster.
Cuiccio, C., Husby-Slater, M., & American Institutes for Research, A. S. S. N. (2018). Needs assessment
guidebook: Supporting the development of district and school needs assessments. State Support
Network.
Leader in Me. (2021, April 17). What is leader in me? https://www.leaderinme.org/what-is-leader-in-me/
Lickona, T., Schaps, E., & Lewis, C. (1995). Eleven principles of effective character education. Character
Education Partnership.
Niehues, L. (2020). A comprehensive approach to character education. Journal of Character Education, 16(2),
27–31.
Project Wisdom. (2021, April 17). Our approach. https://www.projectwisdom.com/ERS/OurApproach.asp

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