FORMATIVE EDUCATION AND THE TRANSFORMATIVE POWER OF NETWORKS
FOSTERING AUTHENTIC RELATIONSHIPS AS A CATALYST FOR CHANGE
CULTIVATING LEADERS OF CHARACTER
THE CHARACTER OF TEACHERS’ WORK
CREATING A CULTURE OF CARE
CULTIVATION OF CHARACTER FOR ETHICAL LEADERSHIP
Ksenia
FORMATIVE
Chris Higgins & Martin Scanlan
FOSTERING AUTHENTIC RELATIONSHIPS AS A CATALYST FOR CHANGE
Cristy Guleserian
CULTIVATING LEADERS OF CHARACTER
Maureen Spelman
Ksenia Filatov
Beth Choquette
Evan Dutmer
The Magis, derived from the Latin word for “more” or “greater,” is a guiding principle at Boston College. It encourages us to strive for excellence, to realize our capacities, and to use our unique gifts for a greater purpose. But how is it that we can understand what our purpose is, what we are called to do?
In part, this requires individual discernment on the larger moral order and our place in it But it also requires community The Kern Partners in Character Educational Leadership (KPCEL) is a community of educators committed to catalyzing character through leadership, and this community can support us as we uncover our strengths and gifts The KPCEL community and striving for Magis can help us contribute to the broader mission of transforming schools through character education, in at least three ways.
1. Community as Identity: We don't achieve greatness alone. It is within the context of a supportive community that we can flourish and work toward our individual potential Community provides feedback, reflecting our strengths and providing us with valuable insights In our interactions with others, we learn about our unique gifts and talents
2. Mutual Encouragement: In a community that embraces the Magis, we find a network of encouragement and support When we push beyond our comfort zones and explore our abilities, community is there to cheer us on This helps us overcome self-doubt and fear, enabling us to reach higher and work towards a common mission When each member of our community uncovers their strengths and gifts, when we encourage one another, we enhance our ability to fulfill the mission.
3. Collaboration and Synergy: Community facilitates collaboration and synergy. When we combine our strengths and gifts, we create a collective force that is more than the sum of its parts. It’s in this collaborative spirit that we can achieve extraordinary things and make a lasting impact toward our mission.
by
Photo
Ksenia Filatov
This first issue of Catalyzing Character is a resource that not only informs but also prompts questioning among readers. We aim to foster a spirit of inquiry and reflection, encouraging you to explore character education and leadership. Our articles are designed to stimulate thought and conversation, with the hope that they inspire you to implement positive changes in your own educational contexts
We hope you find the features enlightening and motivating We encourage you to engage in conversations with fellow KPCEL members and peers: share your insights, challenge one another, and consider how you can apply these ideas to your practice
Together, through thoughtful dialogue and collaborative effort, we can strive for the Magis and catalyze character in leaders, educators, and young people, thus moving toward a brighter future for our students and communities.
Warm regards,
Stanton E. F. Wortham and Melodie Wyttenbach
Stanton E.F. Wortham, Ph.D., is the Lynch School's inaugural Charles F. Donovan, S.J., Dean. A linguistic anthropologist and educational ethnographer with expertise in how identities develop in human interactions, Wortham has conducted research spanning education, anthropology, linguistics, psychology, sociology, and philosophy.
Melodie Wyttenbach, Ph.D., is the Senior Director of Formative Leadership Education, Executive Director of the Roche Center for Catholic Education, and faculty member in the Lynch School of Education and Human Development at Boston College.
Samantha Deane, Ph D , is a philosopher of education, and Director of the Formative Leadership Education project at Boston College. She is the author of Democratic Education in an Armed Society (2023).
EDITOR’SNOTE
Birds flying high, you know how I feel Sun in the sky, you know how I feel Breeze driftin' on by, you know how I feel
It's a new dawn, it's a new day It's a new life for me, yeah It's a new dawn, it's a new day It's a new life for me, ooh And I'm feeling good
In 1965 Nina Simone covered “Feeling Good,” a booming song of emancipation that manifests the feeling of dawn.
What does dawn feel like to you? Does it strike you as the start of a new life, a new day? When was the last time you watched the sunrise? For me, dawn is synonymous with a baby waking to nurse This was the last time I regularly watched the sunrise It’s been a few years since this stage of parenthood But now, when I think of dawn, my mind returns to these mornings, to watching the sunrise over the lake as my daughter nuzzled back to sleep.
In that time of sleepy wakefulness, watching my daughter as often as I looked out the window, I noticed that although dawn might be synonymous with natality or newness, it is primarily a time of transition. Because in the moment that your corner of the world goes from dark to light, it transforms. The bird songs get louder and louder. The flowers stretch up. At the same time, other life forms recede. The insects quiet down. The raccoons find their beds. Dawn signals the promise of transformation.
Nina Simone
Photo
For Nina Simone, dawn signifies a transition and transformation, from relative unfreedom and oppression to emancipation and joy. To feel free, said Simone, is to be alive– open and awake to the world It is also to live without fear
In this spirit Hannah Arendt (1998, p 247) notes:
The miracle that saves the world, the realm of human affairs, from its normal, ‘natural’ ruin is ultimately the fact of natality, in which the faculty of action is ontologically rooted. It is, in other words, the birth of new men and the new beginning, the action they are capable of by virtue of being born Only the full experience of this capacity can bestow upon human affairs faith and hope… It is faith in and hope for the world that found perhaps its most glorious and most succinct expression in the few words with which the Gospels announced their ‘glad tidings: ‘ a child has been born unto us.’
At dawn, our faith is restored and hope buoyed by the vital and bustling movement of life on a new day. It all feels possible at dawn, and Simone and Arendt (among many others) urge us to recall the miracle of this feeling because it is here, in this moment of emergence, where we find cause to act with deliberate care, and without fear, for the world we make possible.
Another analog for the feeling of dawn might be moments of learning or recognition. The discovery of a new idea or the dawning awareness of a previously unperceived fact about the world paves the way for new action It is not just that the students, in their youth, surprise us, the educators, with their capacity to initiate Rather, education itself calls forth the dawn It is a process that expands our horizons “Education… means emancipation,” said Frederick Douglas.
To catalyze character education is to recall the ways in which each of us feels the dawn. After all, flourishing requires freedom as much as it does appreciation for and understanding of the complex networks that make possible ethical action in a shared world.
As you read and muse on the first issue of Catalyzing Character, I invite you to consider what it means to think and feel the dawn as leaders and experts of character education Each article offers a different picture of the dawn, of new life, and thus of new action for character education. ■
News accounts abound reporting the manifold problems facing schools - ranging from chronic absenteeism to persistent inequities in student achievement. Curriculum and instruction has become ever more politicized, the front lines of battle in the increasingly incivil culture wars. And perhaps unsurprisingly, attracting and retaining teachers and principals has become an existential struggle for schools across sectors public to private, secular to religious, as teachers experience unprecedented levels of stress and demoralization.
Without denying these challenges, we would like to venture an optimistic counternarrative, one grounded both in our conviction that schooling must be formative and in our observation that the community of educators committed to holistic formation is growing stronger. We unpack our thesis in two steps, considering first the formative potential of schools and then the transformative power of networks.
TheFormativePotentialofSchooling
To be human is to inhabit multiple worlds. As embodied creatures, we must navigate the natural world and the built environment. As social beings, we must negotiate the relational and the communal. Endowed with judgment, we inevitably find ourselves dealing with questions of better and worse, higher and lower. Our cultural and historical nature means that even while we are denizens of the here and now, we are also travelers able to encounter non-local forms of feeling, thinking, and valuing. In all of these contexts, we gain information, seek transformation, avoid deformation In other words, living itself is a process of formation
How important is schooling in this lifelong and lifewide process? This question is trickier than it might seem. Schooling is arguably our most deliberate, communal effort at forming ourselves. Schools shape our sense of time, structuring the hours of a day and the seasons of a year. They provide the young their most important early glimpse of the public world, introduce them to history and culture, frame (for better or worse) their social interactions with their peers, and more.
At the same time, we must heed John Dewey’s warning about modern scholasticism. Having invented an institution whose sole (official) function is to educate, we often mistakenly assume that the school is our sole educational institution We overlook the powerful educative (and of course potentially miseducative) forces of myriad other institutions, such as family, religion, work, media, technology, and politics.
But formation is not like a supermarket spree in which you toss various influences into your shopping cart and hope it all adds up. Educating the whole person means not only tending to the growth of all of the important aspects of ourselves (given our nature and the offerings and demands of the world), but also integrating these lines of development into a coherence of character and unity of outlook. Interestingly, Dewey (1930) thought that it was precisely here that the school must play a crucial role:
One code prevails in the family; another, on the street; a third, in the workshop or store; a fourth, in the religious association As a person passes from one of the environments to another, he is subjected to antagonistic pulls, and is in danger of being split into a being having different standards of judgment and emotion for different occasions. This danger imposes upon the school a steadying and integrating office. (p. 26)
In many ways, modern schooling has shirked this responsibility. Indeed, schooling might well be seen as a dis-integrative institution. Districts have become an instrument of social sorting, further dividing the body politic. The curriculum singles out intellectual growth and then divides knowledge into disciplines and learning into 45minute chunks. And students complain perennially of how disconnected school is from “the real world ” Meanwhile, the school struggles to serve as a space to reflect on and integrate values given that it is increasingly driven by its ruthless competitiveness and nihlistic instrumentalism. Good luck piloting your character education curriculum in The Hunger Games!
Could it be that the schools are finally ready to fully embrace their formative office and educate whole persons for lives of meaning and purpose? We think so.
And yet, there is a growing sense that the time has come to reject this narrowness, fragmentation, and instrumentalism. Students are balking at the idea that life is a conveyor belt. Parents are noticing what school does to their children’s mental health. Educators are pointing out how testing is crowding out teaching and learning Could it be that the schools are finally ready to fully embrace their formative office and educate whole persons for lives of meaning and purpose? We think so At the same time, we recognize with David Tyack (see his collaborations with Larry Cuban and William Tobin) that education has a funny way of talking about change a lot while changing very little. Our Deweyan hope may be radical, but it is not utopian. It is grounded in a level-headed theory of change, based on the power of networked communities of practice.
TransformativePowerofNetworks
We are striving to build the organizational capacity and culture in schools and educational systems to meet their potential of promoting holistic formation While keenly aware of the many barriers that impede this pursuit, we find hope in the emergence of diverse, intersecting, and complementary networks of educators striving to productively, creatively pursue this.
The KPCEL is Exhibit A. Here we find searching conversations about character education conducted by a dynamic range of educational stakeholders from teachers and administrators to policy makers and entrepreneurs to higher education faculty. Alongside the KPCEL, many other complementary, intersecting networks promote holistic formation. Birmingham’s Jubilee Centre, Wake Forest’s Program for Leadership and Character, and Notre Dame’s Virtues and Vocations forum, and the Coalition for Transformational Education, are four such dynamic hubs of activity Our own institution, Boston College, has added to its long commitment to formative undergraduate education a new department devoted to the academic study of (lifewide and lifelong) formative experience and aims.
Such networks engender structures and practices that advance holistic formation. They help aspiring and practicing educators alike build teaching and learning environments that attend to the head and heart, academic and affective, social and spiritual (Wortham et al , 2021). At their best, these environments reflect a coherence, supporting the holistic formation of all community members - from the students to the families, the teachers to the administrators to the staff.
Networking holds this power because a fundamental way that people learn is in communities of practice. We learn in relationships with one another. These depend on many factors, including trust, shared commitments, and risk-taking. When it comes to schools, scholarship shows that teaming is a key way to foster adult learning (Drago-Severson & Blum-DeStefano, 2016) and promote collective efficacy (Anderson et al , 2023) The communities in which we live and move shape our sense of self, our commitments and values. They nurture our knowledge and skills and capacities. Our communities of practice are, in a word, formative.
And, at times, they are transformative. Networking can catalyze us to resist our tendencies to insulate ourselves within bubbles, filtering what we see and hear, and instead stretch to engage with new, divergent voices It allows us to craft relationships with colleagues from institutions and with perspectives that can broaden our understanding and challenge our assumptions Networking promotes growth, fosters humility, and gives hope. Indeed, the emergence of networks of educators pursuing holistic formation provides buoyancy in these beleaguered times.
The quest to cultivate character that allows our souls to flourish is at least as old as Aristotle. And in this historic period, the need for this expansive approach to education is more pressing than ever. Engaging in this pursuit we are, as Jack Johnson sings, better together ■
Chris Higgins, Ph.D., is the chair of the Formative Education Department at Boston College. He is a philosopher of education and author of Undeclared: A Philosophy of Formative Higher Education (2024).
Martin Scanlan, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Higher Education at Boston College. He is a leadership educator and author of Navigating Social Justice: A Schema for Educational Leadership (2023).
Photo from the 2023 KPCEL convening by Ksenia Filatov
Integrating a focus on character within a large public university is a messy endeavor It takes time, empathy, patience, open-mindedness, resilience, and the commitment to developing authentic relationships. Where to start and how to move forward can be an evolutionary process that over time cultivates a culture of character while also developing the individual dispositions necessary for those engaging with the initiative to effectively navigate the experience.
When I first came to Arizona State University (ASU) my role was centered at Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College (MLFTC). I arrived with a background in character education, interpersonal communications, and social emotional learning, and with a working knowledge of operations in nonprofit and healthcare organizations My experience with higher education was limited to my time spent on campus as a student, and I was entirely unaware of the complex systems that faculty had to navigate throughout their careers.
In my first several months as a newbie in Higher Education, I took the time to go on a “listening tour ” I spent most of my days meeting people for coffee or tea or asking them to walk with me so we might become acquainted. We would learn about each other’s work, interests, and experiences. I would ask them about their notions and musings about character development and character education and how they felt it might apply - or not- to their work or research interests. We talked about the history of the college, their extended experience with the university, and their relationship with the systems that exist in the institution. This was my opportunity to seek to understand the values and perspectives of my new colleagues and the culture and context of the environment in which I was now a participant
CRISTY GULESERIAN
Photo by Ksenia Filatov
One early conversation with a former faculty member, who has since moved on, had a significant impact on how I approached my new role and thought about the university environment. This person was very gracious in their willingness to meet with me, and in retrospect, I believe they were attempting to be helpful, although at the time I took our conversation as an ominous warning and reacted accordingly In this conversation, it was suggested that the university was a hierarchical place That faculty was at the top of that hierarchy, and I needed to remember that I was not faculty This comment led to a feeling of deflation as I was attempting to navigate my way in an unfamiliar environment where a metric of success of the initiative I was hired to lead, would rely on engaging faculty The way I received and responded to this message prompted me to question my ability to be effective in my role. I became passive in meetings where faculty were present and was hesitant to share my ideas. I questioned my decisions and would not take a stance on issues or ideas until I was aware of what others, mainly faculty, thought and supported. I felt I was unable to make requests of people in faculty positions because I was “beneath” them in the hierarchy.
My passive behavior continued until the day I was questioned by my dean, who had noticed the change in my performance. I hesitantly shared this story with her. The way she responded had a profound impact on me and the trajectory of our work. She assured me that my lived experiences– my capacities and dispositions– were the reason I was brought into this role. She helped me to see that one person’s perspective might not be the whole story or an absolute truth, and that many people in faculty roles may be reacting to the consequences of systems that we have the opportunity to address through our work on character and culture.
She helped me to see that one person ’ s perspective might not be the whole story or an absolute truth, and that many people in faculty roles may be reacting to the consequences of systems that we have the opportunity to address through our work on character and culture.
My dean’s willingness to have an open and crucial conversation was a pivotal moment in my experience at the college It changed my perspective of myself and my role in this work and of our institution's dynamic and multifaceted culture It helped me to see that one person’s experience of an environment might be quite different from another’s It was also a step towards cultivating a trusting relationship between a supervisor and an employee It helped me to recognize that cultivating character could be an entry point to evolving culture within an organization. In fact, part of the work, I discovered, would be providing opportunities for open dialogue and creative collaboration. I learned to draw on the perspectives of others and see their diverse experiences and expectations as assets for navigating change together, as a community.
From that point on, I have attempted to remain open to the perspectives of others. I regularly assess, challenge, and clarify my perspective in relation to the way others think. And I am always aware that we are on a collaborative journey of shared learning and leadership. Embracing this perspective and nurturing practices that keep me close to this way of thinking has helped me to see new pathways towards creating cultures of character and belonging in higher education
Over the seven years of our efforts to cultivate a culture of character at MLFTC we have prioritized developing authentic relationships that enable us to better understand the needs of others Our focus has expanded to encompass not only culture change within our college of education but also across the entire university. In nurturing these relationships, whether on a one-on-one basis, or in various group and community settings, we have started to see many of the challenges of culture change as interconnected to character development. These challenges transform into opportunities to meet the needs of both individuals and the organization when we engage in reflective inquiry and possibility thinking.
Here are three questions you might explore if you are introducing conversations about creating cultures of character and flourishing with new friends in fresh contexts. Our focus on developing relationships has continued to be a common thread in our ongoing work and an asset as we explore ways to address these opportunities.
Through our work we have found that change fatigue and an aversion to change is often expressed as a hurdle to embracing new ways of thinking and doing. Change can be messy, uncertain, and uncomfortable. It takes time, intention, and attention from the entire organizational or learning community. We have found there are certain individual practices that can help people navigate the stress and discomfort of change, such as “intentional present moment awareness” and “introspective reflection.”
Placing attention on the development of authentic relationships in the workplace can also make change feel less lonely and help people become more comfortable with the process Creating the conditions that contribute to the nurturing of workplace relationships that have the capacity to evolve into character or virtue friendships is one way to support both the intra and interpersonal needs of individuals within the learning community This can be achieved by creating physical space that is conducive to collaboration and comfortable conversation as well as space in the daily schedule for people to connect with each other outside of the scope of a meeting. Identifying influential “catalysts” who are creators and early adopters of new practices and organizational focus can be key. These catalysts demonstrate the dispositions needed to navigate transformation in a healthy way and can help support individuals who might be lagging in their understanding of purpose or their willingness to contribute to the evolving organizational environment or culture. One catalyst role might include checking in with people who are struggling with stress associated with change fatigue. These peer check-ins can be helpful in guiding others to see the purpose and possibilities around adjusting their own evolving practices, as well as contribute to a culture of kindness, inclusion, and belonging.
Existing in an institution that values innovation can be exciting and sometimes invigorating. But what happens when the extremes and incentives associated with a fast-paced culture of innovation lead to competition, inequitable decision-making, disconnection, and burnout? When we begin to value the product of our innovation over the collaborative process and the people who will be affected by the change, we run the risk of creating conditions that diminish trust and authentic relationships, rather than an environment that nurtures these capacities. Considering each individual’s responsibility to contribute to a culture of character can help people to imagine the plausibility of a shift in the environment where they have influence or control. These individual demonstrations of character or small changes in the way we think, feel, and act can amount to a collective way of thinking and behaving that leads to a healthy and sustainable shift in culture and organizational transformation.
Small changes might include introducing reflective practices into existing meeting rituals and agendas or allocating time for relationship development or togetherness practices in the daily schedule, faculty meetings, or curricular activities Leadership commitment to character might include demonstrations of relational value that communicate care for individuals as human beings, not human capital. Leaders might also consider 1:1 meetings as an opportunity to engage in reflective inquiry and coaching as opposed to only giving directives. Creating trusting environments that lend themselves to authentic relationships is key. Listening to understand the needs, perspectives, and feelings of team members, and creating conditions designed to meet those needs is one way to nurture the development of trust. When leaders allow themselves to be seen as human, embrace the humanity of others, and honor autonomy in how, where, and when people engage in their work, they are communicating a mutual respect and providing people with the opportunity to not only feel trusted, but to demonstrate trustworthiness When we begin to value the product of our innovation over the collaborative process and the people who will be affected by the change, we run the risk of creating conditions that diminish trust and authentic relationships, rather than an environment that nurtures these capacities.
While leadership commitment is essential for a thriving character initiative in a university context, the way that commitment is communicated and demonstrated might hold the key to sustainable implementation It is not enough for leadership to communicate a directive through words, actions are also a form of communication I often think about my early faculty interaction through a leadership lens. The power of that experience was the demonstration of character in the interaction with my dean. This communicated to me that she not only spoke of character, but she also practiced it in the way she interacted with and supported others. This demonstration of action backing up her words gave me the confidence that I could also share in the leadership of this work in a way that aligned with our core values and recognized the value of each personregardless of rank or perceived hierarchy - to contribute to our collective culture of character
Creating a culture of character is an evolutionary process. It takes time to see and feel the benefits in our everyday experiences within our environments. Placing time, effort, and resources into the development of authentic relationships will open possibilities for collaboration, intentional communication, and deeper understanding as we work, teach, and learn alongside each other. In our work at ASU, nurturing these relationships has been the catalyst for both individual and collective becoming. Creating casual spaces, such as communities of practice, for participation, contribution, and reflection has opened-up opportunities for deepening relationships, engaging dialogue, honoring transparency, and modeling character in everything we do. We are beginning to see the transformation on a micro level, and hope that a continued focus on relationships will strengthen our commitments to each other as we collectively cultivate the environments that support the flourishing of our entire learning community ■
Cristy Guleserian is Executive Director of Principled Innovation at Arizona State University, Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College Cristy works collaboratively with ASU faculty, staff, students, and community partners to integrate ASU's design aspiration, Practice Principled Innovation, into culture, curriculum, and practice
Maureen Spelman, Ed D , is a Professor in Educational Leadership and the Coordinator of Character Initiatives at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois. She is the author of the Ethical Dilemma Reflection Framework.
Professional educators who lead with a moral compass need to carefully consider the context, critically evaluate the relative weight of competing virtues, examine the perspectives of all stakeholders, and remain open-minded to potential solutions. A valuable method for developing moral decision-making processes may be through sustained practice with authentic ethical dilemmas. At North Central College we are learning that practice with education-based ethical dilemmas using a fourphase reflection framework is having a positive impact on the moral reasoning of aspiring school leaders. Data collected over three years confirms that this instructional strategy is having the greatest impact on those candidates most in need of developing and deepening their moral reasoning skills
Photo by Ksenia Filatov
Aspiring educational leaders frequently express a desire to make a difference and bring wise leadership into their future roles At North Central College (NCC) we posit that our focus is not just to prepare school leaders, but to prepare good school leaders. In the very first educational leadership course, candidates embark on a two-year journey in which they work on developing their own leadership character, leadership styles, and leadership virtues. Our stated moral purpose is, “…to develop leaders who foster educational environments where all individuals can flourish.” The educational leadership program at NCC places a particular emphasis on cultivating the virtue of practical wisdom. In fact, one of our overarching Cultures of Character initiative outcomes is directly focused on the development of practical wisdom:
Candidates will explore, interpret, and apply practical wisdom in authentic field experiences with a focus on problem-solving, equity, and advocacy situations. Candidates will demonstrate and/or provide evidence of practical wisdom:
5.1 Character caught: developing virtue literacy, personal mission/vision statements, and recognizing examples of practical wisdom.
5.2 Character taught: practicing with dilemmas that present competing values, emotions, and alternatives in content specific courses
5 3 Character sought: exercising practical wisdom in classroom, field, and internship-based experiences.
Leaders engaging in the processes of making decisions, judgments, and/or navigating ethical dilemmas are often challenged by elements of ambiguity or even conflicting values School leaders frequently struggle and search for the correct path to guide their decisions in complex circumstances. Learning to handle such challenging situations requires habituation as well as repeated experiences. In the educational leadership program at NCC candidates are provided with intentional opportunities to practice and build muscle memory around this important skill. The long-term goal is to develop candidates’ ethical fitness so that they will be able to apply those skills in creative ways to challenging dilemmas that will arise in future leadership roles.
Prominent scholars (Daloz, 1999; Freire, 2000; Mezirow, 2000; Drago-Severson & BlumDeStefano, 2018) agree that collegial conversations add an informed layer to the reflective process. In today’s schools, which are often led by teams of leaders, the more important the decision, the greater the need to tap into the perspectives of others. In fact, collaborative decision making highlights the benefits of drawing on collective practical wisdom (Aristotle, 1999; Olsen & Olsen, 2000; Surowiecki, 2004; Weimann, 2007; Kristjánsson et al., 2021; Murphy Paul, 2021).
Beginning with the very first course in the program, NCC candidates regularly engage with authentic, education-based ethical dilemmas as part of a team During face-to-face and synchronous class meetings candidates are broken into small groups to engage with an authentic education ethical dilemma. In these groups, candidates follow a four-phase Ethical Dilemma Reflection Framework I developed to debate, discuss, and attempt to come to consensus on possible solutions (Spelman, 2023).
These small groups have the option of having one individual serve as the note-taker or to work together on a Google document to record the conversation as they methodically work through the four-phases of the reflection framework. The full class then reconvenes to compare, discuss, and debate the responses generated by each small group and come to a large group consensus as to the best course of action. These exercises in group decisionmaking facilitate the habituation of the fourphase process and encourage the development of candidates’ understanding of the value of decisions reached via the collective wisdom of team members.
These exercises in group decisionmaking facilitate the habituation of the four-phase process and encourage the development of candidates’ understanding of the value of decisions reached via the collective wisdom of team members.
The important lingering question that we are exploring is whether these ethical dilemma exercises have an impact on the moral reasoning of our educational leadership candidates. To assess that question candidates are required to complete the Defining Issues Test (DIT2) of moral reasoning prior to the onset of the first course, at the end of the first course, and later at the end of the educational leadership program. This data collection is ongoing, but the initial results have proven to be encouraging The data from five semesters demonstrate a positive trajectory for each cohort in the first semester; and three cohorts that have completed the program continued to demonstrate higher DIT2 scores from the pre-assessment to the final post-program assessment.
We know that candidates entering our educational leadership program come to us from a wide range of diverse backgrounds along with varying levels of moral reasoning As we explore the data on a more discrete individual level it becomes apparent that something very positive is happening within the first 16-week semester experience for each cohort of leadership candidates. What the individual data reveals is that those who enter the program with less developed moral reasoning make the most gains within that first 16-week semester. For example, those who entered with a DIT2 preassessment N2 score of less than 30 gained an average of approximately 15 points on the DIT2 post assessment. Candidates with a preassessment score between 30 and 40 gained an average of approximately 10 points, and those with a pre-assessment score between 40 and 50 points gained an average of 6 points The data does not reveal noticeable gains in those who scored over 50 points on the pre-assessment.
Ultimately, there seems to be a compelling story here as we drill down to the individual data. An analysis of the individual data suggests that those candidates entering the program already possessing a high level of moral reasoning do not demonstrate noticeable gains. However, the experience of grappling with ethical dilemmas within a community of learners following a fourphase reflection framework appears to have the most benefit for those who enter with the lower levels of moral reasoning In the end, practice with education-based ethical dilemmas using the four-phase framework is having the greatest impact on those who need it most At NCC we find that encouraging as we prepare a diverse group of candidates to return to their schools as wise leaders. ■
“We try hard, but things are constantly knocking us down,” “I feel increasing pressure and anxiety,” “the job has become so onerous,” these are the words of teachers participating in an online professional learning community dedicated to the flourishing of the teacher last Spring They are sadly representative of the broad population of American teachers. The Annual Merrimack College Teacher Survey for 2023 reported that teachers’ mental well-being is at a critically low level:
Overall, close to half (42 percent) of teachers say that their own mental health/wellness is negatively impacting their teaching and professional growth this school year. Just over half (52 percent) say the same of their colleagues. Troublingly, 56 percent of teachers say the mental health and wellness of the teachers at their schools has worsened over the course of the 2022-23 school year.
(Edweek Research Center, 2023, p. 15)
These are the realities we need to take seriously and confront directly in our efforts to promote character education In the conversation on how best to facilitate students’ character development, we generally talk about what we want teachers to do, and what we want students to do. We don’t consider often enough, however, what conditions make it possible for teachers to do the work of character education.
KSENIA FILATOV
Photo by PeopleImages, Getty Images
In the Spring and Fall of 2023, I had the honor of co-facilitating virtual professional learning communities (PLCs) on the topic of the Flourishing of the Teacher The purpose of these PLCs was to create the space to cultivate mindful attention to one’s feelings about the practice of teaching. In the spring, over 15 school professionals across the United States enrolled in the PLC on the Flourishing of the Teacher. It was an evening time slot, and only about 5 participants were able to join on any given week. Of those, only 3 teachers participated consistently. Everyone cited being overwhelmed and exhausted with work as a major impediment to participation. In the Fall of 2023, 3 of the 6 participants were from the K–12 sector in Kenya. They joined on Zoom at around 7:30 pm nearly every week. Towards the end of the semester, they were no longer joining from home, but from school, because exampreparation time demanded their presence at work late into the evenings Whether I was talking to teachers in Kenya or in the United States, the consensus was that character education takes time, and time is a scarce resource in schools.
Character education entails working explicitly with values; it is inherently student-centered, and requires close observation of students’ personal development alongside their academic progress. To refine our students’ character, we attend not only to the quality of our students’ work, but more importantly, to the qualities that students bring to that work. We hope that our students will approach mathematical or engineering problem-solving with perseverance and creativity, for example As teachers, we are concerned with what kind of person is doing the work. Thus, we require our students, whether through dialogue or introspection, to reflect on what kind of person they are in different situations and while undertaking different tasks. Character educators, therefore, attend to the quality of the process, and not just the outcome.
Similarly, I am inviting my readers here to attend to the quality of the process of teaching. What does it take for the teacher to sustain attention to their students’ character? It certainly takes more than pedagogical content knowledge about how to teach mathematics or engineering Character reveals itself more apparently through attitude and less so through technical mastery Thus, a prerequisite of character education is that the teacher is attentive to the qualities she brings to tasks and contexts in her own life. The character educator, first and foremost, is sensitive to her own character, takes steps to cultivate it, and to refine the values that inform that process.
The rhythm of the teacher’s work-life in American schools leaves little mental energy for the kind of mindful attention we idealize in the field of character education. Yet, this kind of reflexive work on the part of the teacher is one of the conditions of character education.
The rhythm of the teacher’s work-life in American schools leaves little mental energy for the kind of mindful attention we idealize in the field of character education. Yet, this kind of reflexive work on the part of the teacher is one of the conditions of character education. If we truly value character education, we must consider how the working environment of teachers helps or hinders their attention to their own and their students’ character At present, teachers’ work is organized in a way that keeps them busy both for the duration of their contractual hours and outside of them busy with lessons, grading, planning, yard duties, and other compliance activities.
In 2022, U.S. American teachers reported working on average 55 hours per week, with 25 of those being face-to-face teaching hours and the rest devoted to planning, grading, and other administrative duties (EdWeek Research Center, 2022). In the PLCs, teachers told me that there are days when they struggle to find a moment to go to the bathroom. This climate is hardly conducive to cultivating mindful attention to one’s character
Attention is finite Time is finite As one teacher in the PLC reflected on the increasing and competing priorities in his school: “things keep piling on, so what do you want me to give up to do that new thing?” Character education entails a shift away from products and outcomes and towards process in students’ experiences. The same is also true of teachers’ experience. Here are three questions about the character of teachers’ work that school leaders and their university-based partners should be asking, when attempting to introduce character education into a school system:
1.Whataretheexistingprioritiesintheschool?
Show me the school timetable, I will show you its priorities, so goes the adage. Numerous school practitioners and leaders have written on the idea that the timetable may be a more accurate reflection of a school’s values and culture than its mission statement (see, e.g., Jackson, 2018; Paterson, 2022). I therefore invite school leaders to conduct an audit of the weekly schedules of teachers, students, and the year’s calendar at their school This audit ought to be done from an outsider’s perspective; imagine that you come from a place where there is no such thing as schools, and you want to figure out what schools are about and what people do in them. The way time is organized has a normative effect.
After the audit is complete, you can begin to think about making the necessary structural changes to align with your vision of character education. What kind of daily schedule, for a teacher, would foster careful attention to processes of doing, learning, and communicating? How can we build time into teachers’ schedules to attend to their own character? (And here is where we must recall the point that something has to be taken away to make that time ) If you fail to do the structural groundwork for implementing character education, you will end up simply putting one more demand on teachers’ time.
Recently, organizational psychologist, Loran Nordgren, and scholar of entrepreneurship, David Schonthal (2022) argued that removing friction may be more important than adding value when attempting to make positive change in an organization or system. This insight recognizes that there is already a great deal of value and potential present in the people who work in an organization the teachers and staff in a school. The role of a school leader is thus to remove barriers that hinder this potential and allow the teachers to be the authors of positive change. In a recent podcast, Nordgen suggested that organizations should act as ethnographers, and attend carefully to the perspectives of different stakeholders to understand what is holding them back This applies not only to teachers and staff but to students and parents in a school community
We need to recognise that most teachers hope they are helping to develop students as wellrounded, ethical persons. Most teachers are also acutely aware when they have to make compromises in that endeavor, in order to meet more instrumental district or school priorities. Many teachers in my PLCs expressed feelings of guilt and intense stress when they were forced by their context to act against their professional judgment of what is best for students. I am inviting you to proceed with a baseline assumption that teachers have the skill and professional intuition that is broadly aligned with character education. You need to find out what is getting in the way of them enacting their educational ideals
I have written elsewhere about a paradigm of professional development that broadly fits Nordgren’s advice above. I am inviting you to reframe the process of implementation of character education, not as one involving “buyin” and “training” for teachers, but as one of liberating, deepening, and manifesting teachers’ existing values and wisdom towards developing their own and their students’ character.
I began this essay with the claim that character education requires of teachers a certain kind of attention: attention to process. I have also claimed that our schedule and work culture, i.e. how we organize and what we do with our time, has a normative impact on ways of seeing, attending, and thinking. In contrast to our ideal, the work of American teachers is organized in a way that habituates an entirely different kind of attention: one geared towards compliance and outcomes. We therefore need to design a working culture that encourages careful attention to processes of learning and development for both students and teachers While I cannot offer a definitive answer to this third question, because it will, in a large part, depend on the conditions of the local context, I can point to two general principles
First, slowing down the pace of activity in school is required for truly mindful character development. Teachers need unstructured time to reflect on their students’ and their own character development, and to design experiences that encourage mindfulness about the quality of our relationships and activities at school.
Second, the discourses and systems of reward and reinforcement, also known as the hidden curriculum, need to be attuned to character and process How often does the hidden curriculum induce urgency and anxiety about “getting things done,” “submitting work,” and “meeting deadlines,” instead of encouraging us to ask “what kind of person am I becoming?” Takenfor-granted notions like “achievement” and “success” have to be examined in light of our commitments to character education and reapplied to processes of teaching and learning, rather than to their products or outcomes. ■
Ksenia Filatov is a school teacher, aspiring philosopher of education, and doctoral candidate at the Lynch School of Education and Human Development, Boston College She researches agency and education, and blogs about teacher work-lives
As I was walking around the playground monitoring second graders' play at recess, a student came up to me and asked, “Dr. Choquette, do you care about Covid?” In which I responded with, “ yes, of course I do. It is my responsibility as your principal to keep all of our students and their teachers safe.” That student then responded with, “I’m telling my dad you care about Covid” and then ran off to play. I didn’t think anything of it, until later that night when I was attending the virtual school committee meeting During the public comments, that student’s father spoke In a very angry voice he stated that I was “running a concentration camp and trying to kill his kid by forcing him to wear a mask at school prohibiting him from being able to breathe.”
My heart sank, as I felt attacked publicly by simply following district policy and CDC guidance I remember thinking, how could anyone be so publicly cruel to another person, especially to a person who spends their day attending to student and staff safety? The next day at school, that student was sent to my office because he was intentionally pulling his mask down, coughing on students, and saying, “I’m going to give you Covid.”
This was a pivotal point in my career as it was something I had never seen before. Sure, I’ve had students misbehave and say mean things to each other, but to see a child intentionally try to cause illness brought it to a different level. This incident occurred in a district that I no longer work in and prior to my training in restorative practices As I reflect back on this incident, I often wonder how restorative practices, if part of the school culture, could have prevented this from happening. If restorative practices were part of the culture of this school and there truly was a culture of care, would this have even happened?
Photo by SDI Productions, Getty Images
Over the course of 23 years as an educator, principal, and, now, superintendent, I have observed significant changes in the behavior of children and their interactions with peers and adults, since about 2016 The behaviors are not necessarily new, however they have increased significantly The changes I have seen are an increase in the use of racist and discriminatory language, an increase in the lack of kindness and respect towards peers and adults, an increase of physical interactions, and a decrease in character traits such as empathy and understanding, academic integrity and perseverance, and the unwillingness to see the perspective of others.
All of this has caused me to ask myself, how can we support our youth in developing their character and, by extension, help society flourish? How can we support young people in understanding the value of being a good person? By creating a culture of care, can we build character values in our youth? If we turn our focus to students’ well-being and their commitment to the common good through a culture of care, can we significantly contribute to the development of character?
The pandemic disrupted the typical social and educational experiences for many students. Increased screen time, potential exposure to inappropriate content, a lack of interactions with peers and adults, as well as the loss of explicit instruction on social interactions are all factors that contributed to a decline in the social-emotional well-being of our nation’s youth In a 2022 report, the National Center for Education Statistics reported that more than 80% of U.S. public schools reported that the pandemic negatively impacted student behavior and social-emotional development (NCES, 2022).
By creating a culture of care, can we build character values in our youth? If we turn our focus to students’ wellbeing and their commitment to the common good through a culture of care, can we significantly contribute to the development of character?
The pandemic flipped schools upside down. During this time, schools across the country saw inequities in their practices, policies, and the educational system more broadly rose to the forefront, presenting a unique opportunity to reevaluate education and the educational system as we knew it The crisis revealed vulnerabilities and disparities in education while also presenting the potential for meaningful change Unfortunately, many of us failed to take the opportunity to make real change.While it's important to acknowledge the challenges and missed opportunities, it's never too late to revisit and reimagine education. Gloria LadsonBillings (Ladson-Billings, 2021, p. 68) uses the analogy of a “hard re-set” arguing, “it’s what needs to be done to reclaim and preserve our culture through our school students.”
I believe that part of that hard re-set is rethinking how schools look at student disciplinary policies, particularly by moving away from policies that are more punitive and moving towards policies that are more restorative in nature. While the initial response by educational leaders to the pandemic may not have fully capitalized on the opportunity for transformation, ongoing efforts can still lead to positive change I believe that by learning from the experiences of the past and actively working towards positive change, we can contribute to a more resilient and equitable education system in the future In this article, I focus on one small piece of making equitable change to our system: creating a culture of care through restorative practices, vision and mission statements, and core values
I believe that part of that hard re-set is rethinking how schools look at student disciplinary policies, particularly by moving away from policies that are more punitive and moving towards policies that are more restorative in nature.
Creating a culture of care through restorative practices emphasizes building and maintaining positive relationships, fostering empathy, and promoting a sense of community. While restorative practices alone may not solve all challenges, it can be a valuable approach in rebuilding character, empathy, and humanity in students. It requires a holistic and collaborative effort involving educators, parents, and the community. In his book, Navigating Social Justice: A Schema for Educational Leadership, Martin Scanlan points to schools supporting the wellbeing of students, their development of their sense of self, and their commitment to the common good (Scanlan 2023, p. 15). A culture of care can contribute to the development of character and humanity It can promote communication and understanding by emphasizing open and honest communication It uses circles or restorative conferences to allow students to express themselves, share their feelings, and understand the perspectives of others.
Restorative practices encourage dialogue and foster empathy and understanding by facilitating conversations that allow individuals to see the human side of one another through the sharing of personal stories, discussing emotions, and encouraging students to consider the feelings of their peers. Additionally, such practices involve implementing activities that promote an understanding of diverse perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences. One of the most important pieces of restorative practices, in my opinion, is that they aim to repair the harm inflicted upon a person in order to restore relationships. This is done by supporting students in the restorative process of taking ownership and responsibility for their actions, listening to how the harm impacted the person or group it was directed at, problem solving together to ensure that it doesn’t happen again and working to restore the relationship.
So often in schools, when conflict arises, the response is to move right to punishment without focusing on repair or encouraging students to take responsibility for their actions by working collaboratively to find solutions that benefit everyone involved By emphasizing the importance of forgiveness and second chances in building a positive and supportive school community, school leaders and educators can foster a school culture that values restorative approaches to discipline and character development.
In addition to restorative practices, revitalizing character in a school involves a multifaceted approach that encompasses the creation of a school’s vision, mission, and core values statements that reflect a commitment to educating the whole child. It is important that schools craft a vision and mission statement that clearly articulates the values and principles the educational institution stands for and that emphasize the development of character, social responsibility, and the well-being of the whole child When we focus on wholeperson education, we “understand people not as autonomous individuals but instead as embodied and engaged in relational networks of giving and receiving” (Scanlan 2023, 45). In educating the whole child or whole person, we address the mind, body, and spirit. Districts and schools need to establish their core values – ones that reflect the desired character traits, virtues, and ethical principles of that district and/or school. By incorporating these elements into the educational framework, schools can create an environment that fosters character development, social responsibility, and a commitment to social justice.
By emphasizing the importance of forgiveness and second chances in building a positive and supportive school community, school leaders and educators can foster a school culture that values restorative approaches to discipline and character development.
Once a school community believes in and lives with fidelity the vision, mission, and core values of the district or school and consciously integrates restorative practices into the educational culture, educators can create an environment that supports the development of character and virtues.
Now, several years after the opening story of this article, I am now part of a school that is building a culture of care through restorative practices Our faculty and staff have completed a full year of training, we are beginning the process of writing our new vision and mission statements as well as our core values, and we are beginning to implement restorative practices with our students with positive results.
When I entered the 6th grade classroom, the teacher and school adjustment counselor had the students all sitting in a circle waiting for my arrival. I sat down in the circle and presented each student with a quote, a piece of paper to write on, and a pencil. I read the quote aloud: “Never do a wrong thing to make a friend--or to keep one.” The students were asked to take five minutes to write down what the quote meant to them. When they were finished, we passed the talking piece around the circle and each student had the opportunity to share what they wrote Among the impactful words that students offered were the following:
“The famous quote means to me, to not try to be someone ’ s friend by not being yourself…if they don’t like you for who you are then they’re not really your friend ”
“This quote means to me that you should never do anything wrong or hurtful to a friend because it will hurt the friendship. It’s also bad to do something hurtful if you want to make a friend.”
Don’t hurt another person's feelings to show that you're cool” and “ never do something bad for a friend.”
“This quote means that you shouldn’t do something wrong to get more popular or to make more friends…you shouldn’t do wrong things to influence or to keep a friend you should do the right thing ”
After each student who wanted to, shared, I then said to them, your reflections and words are deep and meaningful, they are kind and thoughtful, yet, your actions tell a different story and this is very concerning After sharing with the group the things that the adults were noticing – the unkind words towards each other, the ganging up on a peer to make him feel weak and like he doesn’t belong, the harmful physical interactions with each other, and the constant disruptions in class – the students individually started to take responsibility for and ownership of their role in creating a negative classroom dynamic. Some apologized and others problem-solved and came up with solutions. In the end, the final statement by one student was, “why don’t we just stop treating each other like this, and just get along? We need to stop acting like this.” This is the power of restorative practices in creating a culture of care.
I believe that restorative practices can help to create a culture of care and by having vision and mission statements along with core values that are understood and valued by all stakeholders, we will then see communities of learners able to identify and promote virtues such as empathy, compassion, integrity, resilience, perseverance, kindness, and respect. And then, just maybe, we will put the “human” back into humanity. ■
Beth N. Choquette, Ed D , is the Superintendent and Principal of Richmond Consolidated School in Richmond, Massachusetts She is an adjunct professor in the Lynch School of Education and Human Development at Boston College, and a mentor for aspiring leaders
Culver Academies is a coeducational boarding high school composed of around 830 students located in north central Indiana Twenty percent of Culver’s student population is international and all students live on campus, making Culver one of the largest fully residential independent school environments in the US. Culver Academies strives to cultivate leaders of character. Drawing from both military academy and boarding school traditions, Culver has organized student leadership development around central virtues and values for its residential campus. Culver’s Schrage Leadership Center houses the Department of Leadership Education, a unique offering among secondary independent schools in providing four successive academic leadership education courses alongside Student Life curricula. Each year’s curriculum is rooted in a transformational leadership framework, using evidence-based tools to guide students’ leadership and character growth Culver’s Department of Leadership Education programming stands as an important example of the exciting possibilities for character-focused leadership education across the duration of a high school learning career.
The mission of Culver Academies is to educate “students for leadership and responsible citizenship in society by developing and nurturing the whole individual – mind, spirit, and body – through integrated programs that emphasize the cultivation of character.” Culver advances its mission across two constituent academies Culver Military Academy and Culver Girls Academy. Following in the school’s military academy tradition (the school was founded as a boys military academy in 1894 and became coeducational in 1971), each academy is structured around the school’s foundational virtues and values The Culver Virtues align with the High Six Virtues of the VIA Classification of Character Strengths and Virtues: wisdom, courage, justice, moderation, humanity, and transcendence (Seligman & Peterson, 2004).
The values, evidencing the influence of the US service academies, are honor, truth, duty, and service.
EVAN DUTMER
Photo of Schrage Leadership Center by Culver Academies Communications
In 1986, Culver Academies established the Department of Leadership Education, the academic department we highlight here, taking a further step towards nurturing each student as an emerging leader with an integrated leadership education experience. Before the department’s formulation, leadership and character were already caught (through the Student Life curriculum) and sought (through the instilling of aspirational creeds like an Honor Code and Code of Conduct); but the Academies aimed to ensure that leadership and character were comprehensively taught in academic settings in a unified, integrated way (Cf Arthur et al , 2017, p 8–10 ) This short article explores how we aim to teach character at Culver Our goal is to create exemplary leaders of character who selflessly serve their communities and the world To do this we draw both on our own history and emergent research on character and leadership education.
The curriculum of the Department of Leadership Education is carefully structured to instill transformational leadership development in each grade alongside athletic, co-curricular, and Student Life activities. Throughout each course in the curriculum, teachers ensure students engage in experiential learning designed around core leadership and character learning strategies that have been recently identified as the “Seven Strategies for Leadership and Character Development” (Lamb et al., 2022). These strategies (virtue practice, virtuous exemplars, virtue literacy, moral reminders, reflection, systems awareness, and friendships of mutual accountability) serve as guides to in-class instruction and center the experiential emphasis across the department (Kolb, 1984).
9th Grade: Learning, Living, Leading (LLL)
Students begin with a required 9th grade leadership, well-being, and belonging course. The class builds out from an understanding that leadership learning begins with ‘self-management’ (Drucker, 2005). Self-awareness, character development, well-being, power awareness, implicit and explicit biases, and bias mitigation are stressed. Students take the VIA Inventory of Strengths (VIA-IS) as a first step of strengths awareness and recognition, connecting institutional virtues and values to those in evidencebased positive psychology.
Students also participate in basic Social Emotional Character Development (SECD) practices, particularly through self-awareness and self-regulation routines using the Mood Meter, developed at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence (Brackett, 2019) For example, students begin each class session with a check-in routine using the Mood Meter from YCEI that allows them to reflect individually on two questions: “i) How am I feeling today? and ii) How do I want to feel today? Do I want to shift to a new place on the Mood Meter or stay where I am?” Individual reflection on these questions encourages daily practice in skills of emotional self-awareness and self-regulation. In this spirit, students engage in this same sort of daily routine with respect to self-awareness and self-regulation for character development.
Finally in a third element of this course, students engage in research on how to learn best through introductory exploration of the science of learning and relevant brain science (Barrett, 2020; Willingham, 2022). Crucial to this part of the course is students’ engagement with growth mindset research and consideration of their own academic mindsets (Dweck, 2007). Students familiarize themselves with the Five Practices model of exemplary leadership and reflect on exemplary leadership they witness around campus and how they could leverage their VIA Strengths to effect those practices in varied team and leadership contexts (Kouzes & Posner, 2018)
10th Grade: Teaming and Thinking (TNT)
In Teaming and Thinking, students embark on an in-depth study of teams, team dynamics, and effective teaming. Utilizing the authentic transformational leadership framework, which emphasizes the bidirectional processes of leadership, students examine their current teams on campus (in their living spaces, athletics, and extracurriculars) and reflect on both effective and ineffective teams of which they have been a part in the past. Students are introduced to the Five Behaviors model of effective teaming and connect their behaviors on teams to their practice of virtues and character strengths. A focus in the TNT course is the careful analysis of and reflection on students’ daily lived experiences in team activities happening all across campus
In line with Peterson & Seligman 2004’s conception of the “Teamwork & Citizenship” VIA strength, students also engage in a study of responsible citizenship and how they envision citizenship, character, and leadership connecting for Culver’s campus. Students complete this course by presenting their learning about outstanding teams and previewing the leadership roles they will take on in the coming year. Further, students craft a summary learning portfolio that serves as a celebration of their leadership and character growth in the first two years of the Leadership Education curriculum.
Photo of Susan Freymiller deVillier teaching 9th grade class on “Living Learning Leading” by Culver Academies Communications
11th Grade: Ethics and the Cultivation of Character (ECC)
The 11th grade Ethics course focuses on practicing virtue ethics. Students study ancient origins of contemporary virtue ethics and positive psychology through Aristotle, Confucius, and other characterbased ethics around the world and then apply their learning through reflective and application exercises (Dutmer, 2022). For instance, each student constructs a goal hierarchy that situates their VIA Signature Strengths in relation to possible ‘ultimate concerns’ (Duckworth, 2016, p. 70).
The main task for ECC is an ongoing Character Lab that runs throughout the entire course, a weeklong intention-setting and evidence-gathering exercise that allows students to chart their growth toward mastery of particular virtues and character strengths. Students set a goal for character practice each week–say, to grow in “wisdom” for the week–and chart a plan for seeking out opportunities to practice that virtue using the VIA Strengths associated with that virtue They also reflect on Aristotle's “Golden Mean” to make sense of their weekly progress Growth in the virtues over the nine-week experience is ordered around a spiral curriculum model, developed at the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues (Arthur et al , 2017, p 71)
To demonstrate competency, students conduct interviews for an imagined student leadership position of ‘character integrator’ (modeled on some of the recent curricular work at USMA at West Point), create an ethical film analysis podcast (ethical films studied include SELMA, 12 Angry Men, and He Named Me Malala), and compose a final written performance growth and reflection document that pulls from previous weekly Character Labs and is assessed around evidence of growth in the five leadership education competencies.
12th Grade: Senior Leadership Reflection (SLR)
Each senior embarks on a comprehensive reflective experience ordered around their leadership and character growth and practice while at Culver. In this culminating reflection activity, students compose, through multiple iterations, an essay that offers their perspective on each of the core leadership competencies described below. These reflections offer an opportunity for both celebration of accomplishment and evidence for competency assessment by the faculty facilitator. The department collects a repository of qualitative evidence of students’ leadership experience for future internal research
Photo of Don Fox teaching 11th grade class on “Ethics and the Cultivation of Character” by Culver Academies Communications
LeadershipEducationbyDesign
The department has organized its curriculum using the Understanding by Design (UBD) framework which focuses on core understandings and essential questions (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005). By utilizing consistent “enduring understandings” and “essential questions” for leadership and character learning, students can engage with the same core knowledge with growing complexity in consecutive years, enhancing the chances for deep, durable learning. Through a collaborative drafting and revision process, the department has drafted the following core leadership understandings and essential questions to guide its curriculum:
Sample Enduring Understandings
Virtues are alive, and to be lived, and practiced.
As virtues are applied and practiced, human beings can improve and continue to strive for a eudaimonistic life.
Ethical leadership in teams requires continual character improvement among leaders and followers toward ends that contribute to overall human flourishing.
Leadership practices can be taught and are improvable.
Sample Essential Questions
What is leadership?
Who is a leader? Who is a follower?
What does good leadership look like?
How do I improve and grow as a leader?
How can I connect my philosophy of leadership with my practice of leadership?
How do I live out my philosophy of leadership in my community?
How do I help develop and nurture others for leadership?
Each course provides opportunities to immerse students in a leadership framework built on these (and additional) understandings and questions Moreover, as we know, cross-course alignment on foundational understandings improves student learning across courses, increasing the likelihood for deep, transferable leadership learning both across the Leadership Education curriculum but also, ideally, across Culver’s course offerings and, later, throughout students’ lives (Bruner, 1960; Mehta & Fine, 2019).
CompetenciesofCharacterandLeadershipEducation
As a member of the Mastery Transcript Consortium (MTC), Culver has enacted an institution-wide adoption of competency-based learning. As part of this curricular evolution, Culver has developed competencies around five distinguishing characteristics of a Culver graduate: leadership, scholarship, communication, well-being, and citizenship. Within the Leadership “pillar,” Culver has identified a series of performance and process competencies, including:
Leadership Competencies
Positively Influencing: A Culver graduate practices effective leadership approaches by positively influencing others.
Achieving Goals: A Culver graduate achieves goals for personal growth aimed at improving their contribution to their team or group.
Modeling and Empowering: A Culver graduate serves as a model for peers and empowers leaders and followers in order to support community values and the group’s purpose.
Serving Communities: A Culver graduate fulfills their responsibilities and engages in meaningful acts of service in order to improve their communities.
Power Awareness: A Culver graduate recognizes the power dynamics inherent in systems, events, and circumstances and that change is made by working within or challenging existing systems.
Culver’s process competencies are collaboration, iteration, perseverance, and behaving honorably. Faculty regularly convene to calibrate standards within levels and across the department and offer students chances to reflect on their own learning and assess their own proficiency according to rubrics for each of the above competencies.
Conclusion
Culver Academies has educated leaders of character since its inception. The Department of Leadership Education is a vital part of that mission, as it ensures each student receives experiential character and leadership learning facilitated by deep reflection in classroom environments as a graduation requirement. Given the need and the growing desire for character and leadership programs that allow students to learn more deeply beyond isolated courses or workshops, Culver Academies Department of Leadership Education stands as an important exemplar among secondary schools that strive to nurture character-based leadership as an institutional goal Indeed, our students consistently report that these classroom environments wherein they were equipped with the tools for critically reflecting on their leadership and character development made a lasting impact. In the words of one student, for example, Culver’s ethics course provided a “North Star” for Culver’s focus on the cultivation of character across campus: namely, ethical leadership aimed at flourishing for each student and for the broader community. ■
This piece is a shortened and revised version of Evan’s article in the Journal of Character and Leadership Development
Evan Dutmer, Ph D , is a philosopher and award-winning teacher at Culver Academies, where he currently teaches Ethics and serves as Curriculum Leader in the Department of Leadership Education From 2018-2022 he also taught Latin and Ancient Mediterranean Cultures at Culver
Photo of Schrage Leadership Center by Culver Academies Communications
FROMTHEARCHIVES:
...in this realm of the education of character, of wholeness, there is only one access to the pupil: his confidence. For the adolescent who is frightened and disappointed by an unreliable world, confidence means the liberating insight that there is human truth, the truth of human existence. When the pupil’s confidence has been won, his resistance against being educated gives way to a singular happening: he accepts the educator as a person. He feels he may trust this man, that this man is not making a business out of him, but is taking part in his life, accepting him before desiring to influence him. And so he learns to ask.
Martin Buber, The Education of Character, from an address to the National Conference of Palestinian Teachers, Tel-Aviv, 1939 Between Man & Man, p 126
Catalyzing Character is generously supported by the Kern Family Foundation.
