Some of the most exciting parts of the growing momentum against bullying are the efforts made by teens themselves to connect with each other, support each other, and speak out against behaviors they find unacceptable.

One of these great efforts is the brain child of Emily Anne Rigal, who was a high schooler when she started a YouTube channel called We Stop Hate.

It’s a place for kids to record their own stories about bullying in school, the impacts they’ve experienced, and strategies for responding.

Check out the video introduction here:

Check out this video from the Buck Institute for Education.

We’re excited about the project-based learning lessons we’ve included in this year’s Worldwide CHARACTER COUNTS! Week Resources. That’s because PBL has been shown again and again to be a successful strategy for motivating students, and for teaching important  real-life skills like critical thinking and problem solving.

So we were intrigued to see an article in Education Week about one school that takes project-based learning as far as it can go — throughout every lesson in the whole school. Principal Tom Horn took over the Kennedy Alternative School in Cottage Grove, Oregon, in 2006, when it was known as a “dumping ground” for teenagers who were failing in mainstream schools, and infamous as an uncontrollable drug market, and for having a zero percent pass rate of state standardized tests.

Horn transformed the institution by introducing an entirely new focus — sustainability — and getting kids out of the classroom and out doing real-world projects. Now, at Kennedy, “the school’s 93 students grow and donate produce, work with energy-efficient architecture, restore wetlands, participate in sustainable forestry initiatives, plant community gardens, teach elementary school students, build trails, raise salmon, plant trees, count fish and keep bees,” according to a profile last year in The Oregonian newspaper. Along the way, the students learn skills in math, reading, writing, and science, but perhaps even more importantly, for kids whose futures seem to be at risk, they learn skills in self-discipline, collaboration, problem solving, and critical thinking. They also get to interact with their community in positive ways, which increases confidence and gives a sense of purpose and mission to their work.

Today, state test pass rates are above 30 percent, and rising — a big jump from zero. Attendance is about 90 percent on any given day, in contrast to 23 percent in 2006. And the drop-out rate is sinking. We think that’s pretty inspiring.

Have you or your school experimented with project-based learning? What worked? What didn’t?

Photo Credit: The Oregonian

That may seem like a long way off, but when the new school year starts it will be right around the corner. That’s why we’ve already posted two installments of resources that will help you plant the seeds for a fruitful and fun CC! Week. Just fill out our quick and easy registration form and download to your heart’s content!

You’ll find tools and guides to help you get the word out, a packet to distribute to local businesses (think: chamber of commerce), and another packet to get community groups on board. As always, we recommend getting young people involved in planning and organizing activities. We’ve posted resources to help you (and them) with that too. Need help convincing your colleagues? We’ve got a sheet listing the benefits of celebrating CC! Week.

This year we’re featuring special project-based learning (PBL) resources in each of the four installments. Let us know what you think of the two that are available now.

After you register, you’ll see what’s in store for installments 3 and 4. Among the resources: more lesson plans, project ideas, and Red Ribbon Week tie-in suggestions.

See our articles on how others have celebrated CHARACTER COUNTS! Week in years past or go to the main CC! Week page.

Don’t keep your plans and ideas to yourself. Post a comment here and share them with the world!

Teacher Appreciation Week was May 7 – 11, but we think teacher appreciation is something that should happen all year long.

Thankfully, there are plenty of other people who think so too! Here are some of our favorite teacher appreciation initiatives that keep the warm glow going.

My Amazing Teacher is a collection of videos by all kinds of people — famous and otherwise — sharing stories about what they appreciated about their favorite teachers. It’s an initiative of the National Education Association and Parenting magazine. Video collection is ongoing, and anyone can upload one.

Classroom Superheroes is a place for communities to gather round the teachers and school staff they appreciate. Write in about YOUR superheroes, and make sure they get the recognition they deserve!

Notable People Thank Their Most Influential Teachers For a quick shot of inspiration, check out this list of of notable people reminiscing about the teachers from their youth who had the most influence on the adults they became.

We’ve featured the StoryCorps Teachers Initiative before (For the previous blog post, see here.), but they’re still doing great stuff, so here’s their latest. In these two interviews, teachers and students talk about they got to know each other, and the impact they’ve had on each other’s lives.

Would you like an exciting way to get your school energized about character? How about kicking off the school year with a shared experience that teachers and students alike will use as a touchstone as they build character?

We’re excited to announce that Obediah Thomas, of the children’s performance troupe Razzle Bam Boom, now offers The Character Show to elementary schools.

The Character Show is billed as a family festival of songs and comedy that educates kids and parents alike about the Six Pillars of Character. The goal is to educate families about positive values and anti-bullying.

Obediah Thomas will have you tapping your toes, humming along, and inspired to fill your year with trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and citizenship.

His songs include: Doing What I’m Supposed to Do, Time to be Terrific, Citizenship, Life Isn’t Always Fair, and Respect Mambo.

For more information, check out RazzleBamBoom.com.

See the Character Show’s listing and that of all our Six-Pillar Partners here.

Dear CHARACTER COUNTS!

I am a teacher in a preschool parent participation class.  Three days a week the preschoolers’ parent(s) come to class to observe and participate in the play and activities for the day.  My classroom aides watch the children and I work with the parents, teaching them skills and activities to do with their child.

I thought it would be a great idea to get CHARACTER COUNTS! involved, and get the preschoolers and their parents off to a strong, early character start.  I am not sure exactly how or where to begin.  Do you have any suggestions?

Regards,

“Miss Mary”

***

Dear “Miss Mary”,

Parents are a child’s first teacher. Your classroom meetings are going to be the perfect place to teach about character.   There are a lot of lessons for preschool-age children in our Lesson Plan Bank. You can find activities that advocate and enforce the Six Pillars of Character, which you can actually do with the parents. Maybe choose one Pillar trait each month or two.  If it is the Pillar of Trustworthiness, for example, then find some activities that teach trustworthiness. Try our “Good to Go” discussion/activity cards, or our book Good Ideas. You can decorate bulletin boards, offer blue snacks (ie. Jello, gummy treats, etc.), dress in blue. It’s fair game to try just about anything you can think of that helps the children and their parents remember the Pillar of Trustworthiness and what it stands for. Go through the Pillars one by one until you have taught all six.

You can find more materials to use to work with parents in our online catalog. We have resources such as our workbooks, music and posters. The younger “Kids for Character” materials are huge with the pre-schoolers.  Take a look through the “What is a Parent to Do?” series, available in both English and Spanish. Plenty of suggestions and plans to model good behavior here.  The national PTA is our partner in production of the book “Parenting, the Most Important Job of Your Life.”

We wish you a lot of luck and support with your efforts and remember we are here to help.  You can contact any of our Program Specialists (800-711-2670, 8:30 to 5:30 Pacific Time) who are always happy to assist you. Thank you again for all you do.

Sincerely,

The Character Counts! Office

Deciding where to go on vacation, what to buy for dinner, or what to wear to work are pretty simple things that we handle with reasonable ease on a daily basis. But what if you have to choose between maintaining your popularity and snubbing the girl who gets on the bus with you? How about sleeping with the guy you’ve had a crush on for months after one date or keeping a sense of perspective and waiting a little bit, even though all your friends say they’ve slept with other people more than once already? These are some of the decisions teens are looking at making on a daily basis.

This month’s lesson plan coincides with the release of Making Ethical Decisions for Teens, a resource to help teens make decisions for long-term happiness. We’ve thrown in a bit of cyber safety too; addressing the actually-happened scenario of a status update on a social networking site that advertised the family home would be empty for ten days. Chaos ensued… How might things have turned our differently? Use the lesson plan to figure out some alternatives and encourage better decision-making skills in teens.

The Tri Sigma Advocate Team

When you think of national college sororities, your first thought might be of parties. But the members of Sigma Sigma Sigma are encouraged to think of their defining element as “character.”

Tri Sigma, as the group is also known, has adopted the CHARACTER COUNTS! training and framework throughout its 110 collegiate chapters and 89 alumnae chapters around the world.

To learn more, we asked Director of Programs Chris Smithhisler a few questions about how CC! impacts the lives of Tri Sigma’s 100,000 members.

***

CHARACTER COUNTS! is most frequently used as a platform for teaching children and teens about character and ethics. What about the program resonates for the women who are members of Tri-Sigma?

I believe character education is something that continues to be important for the 18-22 year old student.  A core part of our mission statement is “to promote strong womanly character.”  The Pillars of Character and the concepts taught through CHARACTER  COUNTS! gives great language to what it means to be a woman of character.  The activities surrounding the Pillars then give actions and examples of how we can live lives of character.  It brings character to life for our members.

At a practical level, how have you incorporated CC! into the lives of Tri Sigma members? What activities or events are happening on a regular basis?

We have incorporated CC! and character education as a foundation of all of our national leadership programs.  All of our chapter officers learn about the Pillars at our yearly Officer Academy and are challenged to make choices based on being women of character.  Our new member program, Dunham Women of Character Institute, is all about character and service.  And, our 2013 Convention will be our big kick-off for our character initiative.  We are also planning our first CHARACTER COUNTS! Week celebration for the fall of 2012; hoping to further educate all our chapters on the Pillars and having our chapters in the community promoting character and CHARACTER COUNTS!

What do you hope that your members will gain from this program?

My hope is two-fold.  First of all, I hope that our members will truly understand what it means to be a woman of character and show and live that through their actions.  Our society needs role models who do the right thing and do what they say they will do!  Secondly, I hope that our members can use this information to teach character when they work within their communities and with children.

Do you have any favorite stories from Tri-Sigma’s CC! journey so far?

We have had an amazing journey thus far and really are at the very beginning of what we hope to accomplish.  Gary Smit, a Character Development Seminar educator and facilitator, has been a mentor through this process and has truly changed my life and perspective on what I do and how I educate.  I firmly believe that in order to create lasting change within an organization, you need to take slow, well-thought out steps to create buy-in from all areas.  That is what we are doing.

My favorite story about our journey so far has to be from our advocate team meeting.  We hosted a Tri Sigma CDS in May 2011 for 30 national volunteers, staff, and executive council members.  From that training, we selected a group of Advocates to lead our process of incorporating CHARACTER COUNTS! and character education into Tri Sigma.  This group met for four days in July at our national headquarters in an un-air-conditioned room and had some of the best conversations and outcomes I have ever been a part of with a group.

Personally, I have been changed through this process as well.  I have been to a lot of professional development trainings, and hands down, the CDS I attended in Los Angeles in 2010 was the most impactful.  It was truly life-changing for me.  Gary Smit and Michael Josephson were the trainers and I left truly understanding that this was so much more than teaching children about character and ethics.  I have not only incorporated what I learned in my professional role with Tri Sigma, but also in my role as a mom, and as a volunteer in my community.  I talk about and teach character with our PTO, in my daughter’s school, and at home.

Would you like to share any particularly creative ways that individual sisters or chapters have found to make character education part of what they do?

Bystander behavior and bullying are prevalent on college campuses.  We have used the Band Aid Chicken, a children’s story, to talk about respect and how it relates to being in a sorority and bystander behavior.  Again, even though this is a pre-school/elementary story it is a great way to engage women in an impactful discussion about bystander behavior and taking a stand to stop behavior that is wrong and potentially harmful.

What advice do you have for others who want to positively influence their organizations by infusing it with character education?

Attend a Character Development Seminar, read the book Making Ethical Decisions, use the resources available through the CC! store and website, and make character education the foundation of who you are as an organization, what you stand for as an organization, and what guides your decisions as an organization.

Many thanks to Chris for taking the time to talk with us. To learn more, visit Tri Sigma’s website.

At the CC! National Office, students from the after-school Aspire Program at West Middle School in Downey, Calif., show the toys they made for developmentally delayed students.

Dear CC!

I was wondering if you have any suggestions for after-school programs or materials for child care.  My children attend an after-school program at an elementary school that uses CHARACTER COUNTS! but it seems that the after-school leaders don’t do much to teach the Six Pillars of Character.  My feeling is that there would be fewer problems and more positive interactions for the kids if there was a way for the Six Pillars to be integrated into the program.  I want to suggest it to the leaders.  Do you think that this is appropriate?

Just Trying to Help

***

Dear Just Trying to Help,

Of course it is appropriate to try and help by suggesting someone use our framework.  We have many schools that do use CC! in both before-school and after-school child care programs.  Basically, it is taught and advocated right along with the school’s program.  Because CC! is taught in the classroom, the kids “get it”, so that should not be your problem.  The problem may be more in the training of the leaders.

You can speak to the school principal to see if there is any training going on in the school.  If so, you may want to suggest that day care or after-school program leaders be included.  If that doesn’t work, you can certainly suggest that the director and maybe some of her staff enroll in one of our Character Development Seminars.  Another option is to visit the CC! Lesson Plan Bank and view all the wonderful lesson plans and ideas that are posted there.

My next suggestion is to get the parents involved.  Plan a play around one of the Pillars, spotlight a child, spotlight a parent, and do more arts and crafts and writing activities that teach and model the Pillars.  Maybe the kids could buddy-up with another program or senior center and make holiday crafts together or read to shut-ins.  You can also use CC! to “decorate” your facility.  Have an open house and invite the principal and some of the staff to see what you are doing.  Often, after-school care is thought of as being separate from the school. It really isn’t. It is an extension of the school day and certainly can and should be an extension of CC!.

If you’d like to discuss this in more depth, please feel free to call one of our program managers at 800-711-2670. We’d be happy to put you in touch with others who have had great success implementing CC! in their after-school programs.

Best of luck,
The CC! Office