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Copyright © Louis Schmier and Atwood Publishing.
Date: Wed, 3 May 2000 08:29:22 -0400 (EDT)
Random Thought: Character Does Count
All week I've been thinking about a touching message I had
received from Ann Brauer Andriacco of St. Dominic School in Cincinnati,
Ohio. She told me a very warm story, so warm it made me sweat with joy.
It was about how her seventh grade students made a passage using their
school work to doing good works. They had studied an art/religion/history
unit on icons and artistic portrayals of Jesus, read an essay about being
voices instead of echoes, discussed just what qualities the artists were
struggling to capture, and decided to make those qualities come alive by
going out into the community to perform good works. They brainstormed
problems facing them from racism to violence in schools. They formed
groups based on their chosen topics and researched the problem, suggested
solutions, invited in speakers.
Seventh graders!!.
But they didn't stop there. Each person became involved in a
solution. One group worked preparing breakfast and entertainment for the
kids at a Women's Shelter. Another researched racism and got an article
into the local newspaper. Other groups wrote a grant to receive some
items they needed. Another collected baby items for Birthright.
Seventh graders!
"They learned," Ann concluded her message, "that what each of us does
can have an effect on the world-- even if it is just a little piece of
that world."
From school work to good works. Competence and character.
I guess I was thinking about that warm message, prompted by a
discussion on an education list about whether academics have a
responsibilty to "teach compassion" in their classes, when I stepped out
into this morning's warm darkness. The security light jumped on as it
always does. As I paused to stretch a tight hamstring, I noticed how
quickly the moths appeared and how just as quickly the cockroaches
scurried to disappear.
As I walked, it seemed that an interesting set of words kept
blowing in and out of my mind to the rhythm of my steps as if part of an
animated Powerpoint presentation: moths and cockroaches, competence and
character, moths and cockroaches, competence and character, moths and
cockroaches, competence and character.
We say that to succeed in this new e-millenium people have to be
educated. But, just what does "educated" mean, and what does it mean "to
succeed?" I think the way most people would answer those questions would
be limited to focusing on "competence": to "getting a good paying job."
That answer has created an educational paradox: educational prosperity in
the midst of social recession. That paradox is created by a narrow
vocational "get and make" approach to, understanding of, and definition of
an education: get that test score; make that grade; get into that school;
make that GPA; get that major, make that interview; get that job; make
that salary. So, when anyone in academia talks about developing subject
competence, we academics gather like moths when a light is turned on.
But, when anyone in academia talks about developing character, we usually
scatter like cockroaches when the lights are turned on.
We each are an complex web spun with inseparable and intimately
emmeshed physical, mental or intellectual, emotional or spiritual, and
social strands. But, our educational systems are so one dimensional. We
teach to the mind. We are so subject-centered. We are so focused on what
we call "thinking" skills. We generally are not emotion-centered and
almost totally ignore the heart skills. We are so focused on subject and
so out-of-focus on character. We talk loudly about work and don't even
whisper about doing good works.
And yet, none of us emerged from the womb with character anymore
than we did with subject competence. We have to learn them both:
knowledge **and** how to guide the use of that knowledge. So, why don't
we teach them both, make them both count, throw them both at the students
for them to catch? If we are to help a student climb the ladder of success,
shouldn't we, like Ann Bauer Andriacco, also help the student to insure that the
ladder is leaning on the right wall? Isn't the goal of an education to help each
person see their own wholeness and that of others, to understand the need
to create a guide for the use of the mind, to cultivate a sense of meaning
and purpose that powerfully impacts those daily decisions, to learn how to
act with integrity in the constant and incessant flow of moments of
choice? I think so. It has to be. You can't really separate what you learn
from what you do with what you learn from the meaning and purpose and
fulfillment with what you do with your learning. To generate the power of
knowledge and competence without generating the guiding power of character
and conscience, of overriding direction, meaning, and purpose is very bad
education.
Understand I'm not being faddish or bandwagonish. During the last
decade I have become a strong advocate and practioner of wholeness or
character education long before any bandwagon started rolling and long
before any academic designer started cutting cloth for a chic style. It is
central to my educational philosophy and at the core of what we do in the
classroom with the subject material.
Let's set things straight and talk of definitions so there is as
little misunderstanding as possible. When I talk of **character**, I am
not talking about what a lot of people call **values**. I don't want to
create more sterile, intellectualized, compartmentalized, textbookish, and
separated "Do As I Say, Not As I Do" courses, programs and curricula about
such things as self-restraint, good manners, obedience to the law,
reverence for marriage, fidelity, chastity, abstinence, sexual activity,
ethics, parental respect, respect for authority, patriotism, religiosity,
sobriety, truthfulness, financial independence, work ethic, etc. By
**character** I don't mean a set positions or ideologies on prayer in
school, evolution, burning of the flag, abortion, capital punishment,
poverty, role of government, individual rights, gun control, and so on. By
**character**, I do not mean religious theology, issues of salvation,
attendance at houses of worship, holiday observances, and the like. In
short, I do not mean a set of beliefs and activities we adults have
decided are vital to promoting a lawful, orderly and civil society, as
well as living the good life, which students should unquestioningly learn
and unthinkingly obey.
By my strict definition, thoses are all **values**, beliefs and
action systems. When I say **character**, I am talking about something
deeper, alive, and enlivening. I am talking about living, every day
principles, the right principles needed to do things the right way at the
right time for the right reasons. I am talking about animated inner
qualities that know no bounds of time or place or culture: courage,
concerns for others, curiosity, integrity, a commitment to personal
excellence. I am talking about the breathing guides for those moments of
decision. I am talking about: be honest, be compassionate, be
trustworthy, be sympathetic, make and keep commitments,
build meaningful relationships, be understanding, treat each and every
person with respect. I am talking about an vitalizing approach to life, of
empowering truth. I am talking about self-awareness, conscience,
conviction, courage, free will, and creative imagination. I am talking
about the capacity to question, to choose, to act in accordance with your
conscience. I am talking about a foundation the laying of which is
critical to reaching for your potential, for guiding your choice of a
value belief and action system.
Character is what we are; competence is what we do. It's not a
matter of a walling off **either/or**. It's a matter of an intertwining
**and** of Gordian Knot proportions. For the key to the quality of life
is based on the extent to which doing is based on principles. And, that
does not come from solely a mastery of a subject. We love to
compartmentalize and separate, but character and competence aren't
separate and separated departments. They are like the distinct but woven
together threads of a spider's web: touch on strand and all others
vibrate. We have to understand, acknowledge, and teach the
interconnecting and bridging **and** of the two, for both are critical.
But, it's character, not information or skill, that determines what we do.
I recently told a dear friend,
Bruce Saulnier, from what is inside--your character--comes what is
outside. What is in your heart becomes your thoughts, deeds. What is
inside is the map of the body and mind. That is, how we see ourselves
I recently told a dear friend, Bruce Saulnier, from what is inside--your
character--comes what is outside. What is in your heart becomes your
thoughts, deeds. What is inside is the map of the body and mind. That is,
how we see ourselves leads us to see students; how we see students leads
us to what we do, and what we do leads us to the results.
In our profession, there is always a lot of talk about motivation,
inspiration, making a difference. Competence without character doesn't
motivate, and certainly doesn't inspire. It's character, not information
or skill or competence that fuels the fire within and ignites the fire in
others. In education, the power of inspiration lays in a teacher's
character, not his or her information. Character is like the measles;
it's contagious. Information is not. Get out of the way of an informed
teacher fired by character. You don't have to for only an informed one. An
informed teacher, a trained teacher has only potential; only an informed
teacher with character can and will act, fight, endure and persevere; only
a informed teacher with character can and will touch; only a teacher with
character is capable of performing "yukectomies." It's no different in any
other walk of life.
No. Skill and information alone don't produce effectiveness,
inspiration, and leadership. They desperately need character. In the
end, educating the heart is a critical part in educating the person no
less than is educating the mind. Wholeness education means to see a
student whole in subject competence and in a power conscience. I think the
ultimate purpose of an education is not limited to producing a productive
worker or a person who has a set of beliefs determined by and imposed by
others. Our charge as educators should not be limited to preparing a
merely well-informed person. Our students, when they leave campus, must
understand clearly the substantative linkage between their character and
the complexities of the world about them. Each day has unexpected
challenges we and the students don't and won't find in the textbook; each
day brings new opportunities; each day demands new choices; each day
offers excuses for not doing something. Each day is a moment of choice, a
moment of decision, all of which are disguised moments of truth. So, don't
we care how they will respond; what choices they will make, how they will
use their competence, how they will feel about those choices? I think so.
The students, we, must understand the important of having character and
using it, that character starts with yourself, extends to family and
friends, is magnified in community and the workplace, connects to country,
and reaches out to the full reach of the family of humankind.
I'll say it again and go way out on the limb: to help develop
competence without developing a strong guide for the use of that
competence is not very good education. It is not even good vocational
training. It is to prepare for a drone-like robotic world of making a
living in a world without purposeful living. Learning and teaching must
start with and continually be woven intimately with character if they are
to end with wisdom and community as they should.
Don't discount character. Character does count!
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