All In
A lot has been made this year of the value of marshmallow tests,
grit, and character in building a quality education. Every time I open my
laptop, someone has forwarded an article or tagged me in a post about about the
value of character in schools. When I closed the lid on my laptop this weekend,
and finally got around to catching up on my NPR podcast listening, there
it was again. Paul Tough, talking about his book How Children Succeed: Grit,
Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character with Ira Glass on This
American Life." Tom
Ashbrook, talking about the
fact that schools are adding
workouts, not for fitness, but for "Attention,
Grit, and Emotional Control." I had to retreat to a Freakonomics podcast about how to maximize my kids'
(read: my) Halloween candy haul (research for next year).
Don't
misunderstand - I'm not tired of the discussion; I think this focus on
character in education is a fantastic turn of events. I'm thrilled. As more and more people
come around to the value of character education, I sound less and less like the
preachy schoolmarm on a weekend pass from the Big Woods.
For the past five
years, I have been teaching at Crossroads Academy, a school that combines the Core
Knowledge curriculum with a core virtues curriculum. I have to admit, I was not
totally sure what I'd gotten myself into when I signed the contract for my
first year. I figured I'd smile and nod, support the character education
teachers in their efforts, and reap the benefits of teaching kids who attend a
weekly character education class. It's not as if this is my first brush with
Aristotle's Golden Mean, on the contrary - I'm one of the A-man's biggest fans
- and I can hold my own in a conversation about prudence, temperance,
fortitude, and justice.
But about six
months into that first year, I noticed all that "character stuff" was
leaking out of character education class and saturating every other subject. It
was my students' fault; they opened the floodgates. They talked about Atticus'
sense of justice in English class, Achilles' lack of temperance in Latin class,
Ghandi's incredible fortitude in history class. This weekend, I was helping my
third grade son study for his history test, and he told me that "the
conspirators killed Caesar because he was not a good steward of
Rome."
Today, Core
Knowledge drives my content, but character education and the core virtues drive
my teaching, and my relationships with my students.
Well, most of the
time. Like anyone who has been teaching the same classes for a while, I am
apt to get lulled into a routine, particularly in November. The clocks have
just changed, that certain slant of light has descended on New Hampshire, and
it's tempting to coast while I put my energy into writing report cards and recovering
from the middle-school super-virus my students gave me last week. After all, it
would be easy; my class materials have all those helpful notes and Post-Its in
the margins, accumulated over years of discussion, the teacher's manual of my
Latin textbook sings its siren call...but drat. Just when I have checked out
until after the holidays, my students foil my plans.
This week, I was
hacking away at the huge pile of grading I have to get through before I can
actually begin to write grade reports, and I was getting sleepy. In my defense,
Latin translations are a huge time suck because my students like to take full
and creative advantage of Latin's relatively flexible word order. Nouns
and verbs are never where I expect them to be, and the grading is slow going.
Halfway through what felt like the bajillionth Latin test, I came across an
incorrect answer, with an arrow pointing to a note in the margin:
"Dear Mrs. Lahey. I
know the answer to #4 is incorrect, but I accidentally saw the answer on your
answer key, and I did not want to cheat. But I know the answer is
"vobis" because "you" is plural, not singular."
Needless to say, I
gave her the two points, and promptly checked back in.
I am not naive
enough to believe that character education alone can save America's educational
crisis, but I do know that this week's headlines are full of bright,
well-educated people who have sold virtue to purchase wealth. If character
education manages to score some column inches on the front page between Jill
Kelley and Lance Armstrong, and authors such as PaulTough and Diane
Ravitch are brave enough to
champion the cause of character in education, I'm all in.