Can We Teach Character?

What is 'character'? A  NewYork Times Magazine article suggests that there are two schools of thought on the issue.  One emphasizes demonstrable qualities, the way character is acted out in everyday situations. Demonstrable character traits include things like zest, grit, gratitude and curiosity. These qualities are said to be good predictors of success in academia, business, and life. The other school of thought sees character as a moral quality one can possess, but which is not necessarily evident in a person at first glance. Abstract traits like bravery, integrity, and citizenship define this category. The article puts Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and other entrepreneurs into the first category, while figures like Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi fall into the second.       

I think the two are related. Deep moral fiber of the sort possessed by Gandhi seems like a daunting thing to teach, but perhaps smaller, concrete qualities like honesty, punctuality, following the rules are character skills that can gradually build a student up and prepare her for a life that can be lived in a deeply meaningful way.

And, if character can be broken down into a set of skills, those skills can be practiced. For me, practice has always been about muscle memory, doing a certain movement over and over until the motion becomes familiar, natural, instinctual. I played soccer in college and the way I trained was to carry a soccer ball with me, at my feet, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I touched the ball thousands of times a day, millions times a week, and eventually, I could control the ball without conscious thought.

The basic elements of character can be built this way as well. To teach self control, we tell kids to take a deep breath and count to ten when they are angry. To teach gratitude, we tell kids to say thank you. To teach grit, we tell them to try try again, over and over. To teach zest, we sing. To teach integrity, we hold them accountable for their actions. Every time they slip up, we remind them what the proper action is.

Little by little, our students begin to do these things themselves. And just as math is learned more fully through personal experience, by handling money or having to convert grams to ounces while following a recipe, just as language is reenforced through interpersonal exchanges, character is best learned outside of the classroom. That's not to say that classroom teachers cannot teach values. On the contrary, it is extremely important for teachers to talk about character, to give character lessons and especially to model excellent character. This is the foundation of what we're trying to teach our students, but the power dynamics are necessarily one sided in a classroom. The teacher holds the knowledge and disperses it to the students. The lessons are there, but they take on more meaning when students encounter them in other areas of their lives.

The playground is a good example of a space in which students can apply the lessons they learn in the classroom. It is a dynamic and less predictable environment. Students are not as heavily supervised. They organize their own activities, set social norms for themselves, and play games according to their own rules. Character lessons inevitably either come home, or go out the window during recess. The playground is a testing ground for how the rules of the classroom apply (or don't) in real life.

This is one reason it's so important to have an engaged adult or two out on the playground reinforcing the social dynamics students have already been taught in the classroom. Playworks employees are often called coaches by the students, and that is what they are, coaches responsible for making sure kids flex their moral muscles as well as their physical ones, making sure the students repeat, over and over again the movements of good character until those motions become second nature.

I'm not saying every student will become a Gandhi, but maybe...

Wouldn't it be cool to know that we're raising a generation primed to be a force for good!

Can Playgrounds Stop Bullying?

Is there a way to build playgrounds, social areas, and internet sites in a way that discourages bullying?

My first thought is that when kids are more engaged, they are less likely to bully, so a space that actively engages students should lead to less bullying.

My next thought is that there are ways to engage children in positive behavior. In fact, in my experience, most kids seem to want to engage in positive behaviors so long as they are perceived as cool. When I was a camp counselor, I used to have older campers befriend younger ones and mentor them. This model worked extremely well with activities like fishing, climbing, and arts and crafts because older students had the opportunity to pass skills down to younger, less skilled students. The younger students felt valued because they were receiving attention. The older ones felt valuable because they were making a positive contribution to their communities.

These are social innovations rather than physical ones, but I think there are some physical spaces that seem to foster these sorts of relationships better than others.

Playgrounds with cooperative features like swings that need to be pushed, see-saws, and other cooperative play elements might limit conflicts. I also, recently, found a video on youtube in which someone placed a megaphone on a street corner in New York with the instructions to say something nice on a placard under it. I was thinking that a bull horn mounted somewhere with similar instructions might be effective.

Areas of a playground with directed activities might be more engaging than simple open space models as well. Most schools have such spaces with lines painted on the ground or equipment set into the cement. The key to this model is enforcement. Someone needs to be in charge of making sure that only tether ball is being played on the tether ball courts and only basketball on the basketball courts and so on.

Cyberspace should have similar restrictions. Areas that can only be used in certain ways. These spaces should be set up to foster positive behavior and monitored.

This seems to be the key. Spaces for kids should be monitored. There's no getting around it. Kids need guidance. If they didn't, they wouldn't be kids. Furthermore, they need active guidance, adults showing them how to play and modeling good behavior rather than simply watching them play or leaving them to figure out what to do on the internet.

Does this mean that kids can never play alone? Most certainly not. I believe that a certain amount of unstructured outdoor play with other kids is necessary for a child's development, but that should not be the case all the time.

Children are engaged in a process of establishing social hierarchies. They do this by interacting in certain ways with each other. This can mean bullying, or it can mean positive, cooperative relationship building. The difference is a matter of learned behavior.

Our playgrounds are already set up for healthy play, and innovative companies like KaBOOM! Are constantly innovating improvements in play spaces. Social media sites for kids with anti-bullying measures are coming on line soon, too. All they need are some adults who are ready to play.  

That's where Playworks comes in.