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Character and community
This document discusses character development at Tallis School. It begins by stating that all educators help develop character through what and how they teach as well as how they act as role models. The objectives are to define character education, consider ways to promote character development across the school, and plan how staff can contribute. Tallis' key character traits are identified as kindness, fairness, respect, optimism and honesty. Suggestions are made for developing character through classroom ethos, role modeling, language, teachable moments, and the curriculum. Staff are encouraged to recognize examples of character shown by others in the school community.
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Character and community
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- 2. 195Number of days school-aged childrenspend in school
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- 4. “We are allcharacter educators” • Though what we teach • Through the resources we use (do our resources show diversity and respect for other views and lifestyles?) • Through how we teach • Through how we act. Being a model of ethical and moral behaviour • Through how we treat students and each other
- 5. The only realquestion is… how well do we do it?
- 6. Session Objectives • Torecap what we mean by Character Education • To consider different ways that we can promote and develop Tallis Character across the school • To plan specific ways that we can contribute to the development of good character amongst our students (and ourselves)
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- 8. • To acknowledgethat we are all character educators • To give more prominence and status to the non- academic things that we do • To give due consideration to the role of the personal and moral development of young people in understanding the world and changing it for the better • To strengthen our community by articulating what it means to belong to the Tallis Community and focusing on how we treat ourselves and each other Tallis Character Aims
- 9. What is CharacterEducation? It is… • All educational activities that help young people to develop a moral compass • The culture and ethos of a school or classroom • Ethical and ‘right’ action, common morality • Something that happens in our classrooms whether we acknowledge it or not • The Tallis Way, or what we want it to be It is not… • Moral indoctrination • Promotion of moral ideas of a particular belief system • Based on the values of an individual or small group • Mindless conditioning • Exclusively religious • Individualistic or conservative
- 10. Living in theSchool Community Character Education Assumed Unconscious Reactive Random Character Education Intentional Planned Organised Reflective
- 11. But we can’tdo any more! • Classroom Ethos • Role Models • Character Vocabulary • Relationships • Personal Interactions • ‘Teachable Moments’ • Affirmation and Correction • ‘At best’ stories • Strength spotting
- 12. Building a classroomcommunity • There is a 2minute section of a clip embedded here and a 1 minute section embedded on slide 16. • The whole clip can be found athttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZYve RLtXXY • I had to remove them to be able to email
- 13. Character Role Models “Childrenhave never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.” James Baldwin
- 15. Common Language • Sectionof clip here
- 16. What do yousay? • There is no rule against it • Everyone else is doing it • No one will find out • What would you do if someone hit your sister/brother/mother/…? • I didn’t have a choice • The position I was in meant that I had to act that way
- 17. Character Through the Curriculum •Caught or taught?
- 18. Teachable Moments • Readthe scenario you have been given • What would you do about it? • Whose responsibility is it to address the issue? • What circumstances or extra information might make a difference to how you approach the situation?
- 19. Teachable Moments 1. Youare in a class and you hear one student tell another student to ‘shut up’ 2. During a lesson you read a student’s response to a question and it shows a clear and significant misunderstanding of the work 3. You receive an email from a colleague that you feel has an aggressive and accusatory tone 4. You are on the bus and you overhear some Tallis students talking. One says to another “You dress too much like a boy/girl. If you want people to like you then you have to change what you wear”
- 20. Next Steps • Howdo we identify students, staff, members of the community who display the character traits? • How do we reward the positive use of Tallis Character? • How should we display the Tallis Character traits?
- 21. Caught in Character Thinkof how or where you have seen other members of the school staff demonstrating any of the character traits today or in the recent past. Write the person’s name, trait shown and what they did on a post-it and put it in the jar. You can put more than one post-it into the jar and at any time today.
Editor's Notes
- #3 5mins (by the time everyone has arrived and the starting task has been done and discussed) Children spend around 975 hours a year at school or 195 days. Not taking evenings and mornings into account, that means that children spend over half of their time in school 54% Change between hours, days and percentage so that teachers can’t tell each other the answers This means that our role is significant in the lives and development of young people, not just their academic performance.
- #5 7mins Some of us feel that our job is to deliver the academic curriculum and get exam results. And to some extent that is true. A large extent. But the job of a teacher has always been so much more than that. And even if we wanted to just deliver the curriculum we could not escape the fact that we are constantly delivering lessons that we do not plan for. How to treat others. Acting with integrity and honesty. Being compassionate and considerate. This does not mean that we should not be firm or follow the rules or deliver punishments and consequences for poor decisions and bad behaviour. But it does mean that we have a responsibility to consider how we do these things and recognise our part in our students’ lives as role models. So the responsibility for building character strengths does not just lie with one person or another but is the collective and mutual responsibility of families, schools and communities.
- #6 8mins
- #7 8mins
- #8 10mins
- #9 11mins Ask people if the remember the traits
- #10 12mins The first three but then MOST OF ALL the fourth
- #11 14mins Character, virtue, ethics, being a ‘good’ person – these things could be and are the subjects of philosophy and religion and debates that are without conclusion. But for us, for Tallis, we are talking about what it means to belong here. For staff and students and members of the school community to know what it means to be a part of this community. That we are kind and thoughtful and compassionate, honest and act with integrity, optimistic and cheerful, respectful, fair and ethical and blah
- #12 15mins This is what we want. For Character to be developed in an intentional, planned, organised and reflective way.
- #13 16mins The complaints that we might ordinarily have about new initiatives shouldn’t apply here. Mainly because it is what good teachers have always done anyway. But also because of the ways in which TC can be promoted and encouraged in a variety of ways across the school.
- #14 21mins https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZYveRLtXXY I want to ask you all a question. You don’t have to answer directly, just in your head. When you were planning your lessons for this year, how many of you planned your classroom culture and ethos? How many of you considered the environment you wanted to create? And if you did consider it, what was the driver for your decision? How many of you considered the underpinning requirements for good learning and cooperative work? Not just the academic but the personal. The absolute foundation of how we treat each other. Task: I want you to spend a minute thinking about how you will consciously create your classroom community and write that into pledge 1
- #15 22mins
- #16 23mins
- #17 25mins Introduce affirmation and correction
- #18 27mins How can you use the Character Traits to address these kinds of statements?
- #19 30mins Consider your own curriculum. What sections do you teach that could lend itself to the teaching of character?
- #21 32mins Each of these scenarios is a real situation. The group will be divided into 4 and each group will have a different scenario. They will be asked to discuss what they would do about it, whose responsibility it is to address the issue
- #22 37mins Changing circumstances; The student told to shut up was discussing the work with another student. The student told to shut up made an offensive homophobic comment. The student struggles with this lesson and the concepts dealt with. The student has been talking and behaving poorly all lesson. Your know the colleague well out of work. The colleague is someone in a higher/lower position than you are. There are a lot of members of the public on the bus with you. You are alone on the bus with the students.
- #23 39mins
- #24 40mins