Character Counts..But Can It Be Taught?

A recent article entitled Content of Their Character in CommonWealth Magazine reviewed two books on how to develop students' character.

One book, Paul Tough's How Children Succeed, has been covered in a few of my previous blogs.

The most interesting point the author, Michael Goldstein, makes about Tough's book is that Tough's belief in home and school developing a child's character traits like grit and persistence makes more sense for middle class families who don't have to worry as much as low-income families about their child's acquisition of knowledge.

As the author writes, "As educated, middle class families, both Tough (whose child is three) and I (my children are two and four) are relaxed about our children's acquisition of knowledge only because we know it will invisibly and inevitably seep in. Hence, we have the freedom to turn our attention to character."

Goldstein doesn't believe his children are more intelligent than kids from  low-income family; rather, his children--by virtue of their parents financial comfort--will live in a environment of intellectual stimulation (i.e., have opportunities beyond school to learn and acquire knowledge).

Hence, while he supports Tough's thesis that character needs to be stressed in schools, he recognizes that knowledge cannot be ignored, especially for children growing up in poverty.

"Beyond IQ and character, there is knowledge. IQ affects the rate at which we develop knowledge; and character affects our willingness to devote time needed to pursue knowledge. But individual schools and teachers are probably even bigger factors affecting a poor child's knowledge...A parent of a kid whose family background does not confer knowledge absolutely needs to worry about how her kid will acquire it, quite apart from any focus on building character."

Although I still support the premise of Tough's book, Goldstein's points made me recognize that educational ideas, policies, and "innovations" are simpler in the ideal than in delivery.

The other book Goldstein references (which I just ordered on Amazon) is Character Compass by Scott Seider, which researches the question of whether or not character can be explicitly taught in schools.

Seider references a recent "mega-study" of character education programs by the Institute of Education Sciences that concluded that sadly the answer seems to be "No".

However, Seider believes that character emphasis in schools will not be successful with imported, packaged programs from outside the school but can be successful if the program/emphasis is home-grown and unique to a school.

The remainder of his book explores three schools in the Boston area that have developed and have implemented different kinds of character education programs: performance character (skills like persistence and optimism), civic character (emphasis on improving the community), and moral character (e.g., empathy and integrity).

Even though theses schools focus on different kind of character (and Tough would opt for emphasizing performance character traits--as I also do), they all have resulted in their students A. doing better on knowledge-based standardized tests and B. showing growth in the character traits emphasized at each school.

Again, character education, specifically performance skills, is the current new thing in education, and maybe I've gotten caught up in the excitement and flash of all the articles, books, and studies that tout character education; yet I feel there is traction here and feel schools need to look beyond knowledge acquisition to the development of character habits and skills.

Yes, I may be overly influenced by my middle-class upbringing and values, yet I have wintessed in myself, my children, and the hundreds of students I have taught that knowledge/intelligence/IQ is nothing without strong character--performance, civic, and moral. And I do believe that character is not innate but is malleable and influenced by school and home.