This book provides the conceptual, theoretical, and methodological foundation that teachers, principals, professors, and students preparing for teaching will need in order to be informed and effective planners and evaluators of character education programs and good character educators. Through its clear definition of terms, review of Constitutional and public support, comparative analysis of philosophical approaches, synthesis of many relevant theories of child development, K-12 core curriculum, description of many instructional strategies, and methodology for program evaluation, this handbook effectively prepares prospective program planners and character educators to create comprehensive programs that are developmentally appropriate, adapted to the unique needs and characteristics of school communities, and soundly evaluated. Dr. Vessels presents a wide range of options, developmental and practical guidelines for choosing from among these options, and a creative core curriculum and evaluation technology that he hopes school community members will find useful for their particular school or system.
Community Character provides a design-oriented system for planning and zoning communities but accounts for how people who participate in a community live, work, and shop there. The relationships that Lane Kendig defines here reflect the complexity of the interaction of the built environment with its social and economic uses, taking into account the diverse desires of municipalities and citizens. Among the many classifications for a community’s “character” are its relationship to other communities, its size and the resulting social and economic characteristics. According to Kendig, most comprehensive plans and zoning regulations are based entirely on density and land use, neither of which effectively or consistently measures character or quality of development. As Kendig shows, there is a wide range of measures that define character and these vary with the type of character a community desires to create. Taking a much more comprehensive view, this book offers “community character” as a real-world framework for planning for communities of all kinds and sizes. A companion book, A Practical Guide to Planning with Community Character, provides a detailed explanation of applying community character in a comprehensive plan, with chapters on designing urban, sub-urban, and rural character types, using character in comprehensive plans, and strategies for addressing characteristic challenges of planning and zoning in the 21st century.
Building Character, Community, and a Growth Mindset in Physical Education is a highly practical and theoretically sound resource that will help you build a positive learning environment, teach valuable life skills, and inspire in students a desire to live active, healthy lives. It reinforces the many ways in which physical education and sport are the ideal setting to build college and career readiness skills. Teachers will learn how to help students develop a growth mindset and recognize that obstacles, challenges, and failures provide the greatest learning opportunities. The book is written with both American and Canadian national standards in mind: You can help your students achieve Standards 3, 4, and 5 of SHAPE America’s National Standards and Grade-Level Outcomes for K-12 Physical Education and PHE Canada’s goals for physical education (“enable individuals to make healthy, active choices that are both beneficial to and respectful of their whole self, others, and their environment”). It will also aid you in achieving Standard Six of the objectives set by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS). This text provides • 35 new large-group warm-up activities; • 20 character-building activities; • 11 team-building challenges; • assessment, reflection, and goal-setting strategies; and • a web resource with ready-to-use printable and editable activity materials (such as focus words and definitions, reflection scenarios, station and team challenge cards, and more). The activities, which are ready-made for use in your curriculum, include a motivational strategy and resource tool using the acronym GROWTH that will help your students learn and adopt the growth mindset traits necessary to set and reach goals. The book addresses many hot-button topics, such as emotional intelligence, community building, teamwork, physical fitness, and goal setting—all in a concise, practical, and highly effective way. As such, you will be helping your students meet Common Core and College and Career Readiness objectives. And students with goal-setting skills and a growth mindset will be well prepared to meet the challenging standards that are promoted by the Every Student Succeeds Act. In addition, Building Character, Community, and a Growth Mindset in Physical Education is the perfect antidote to bullying: Through the materials and activities, the students learn to be respectful competitors and supportive teammates. The text contains six chapters: • Chapter 1 explores the connection between emotional intelligence and a growth mindset. It reinforces the many ways in which physical education and sport are the ideal settings to build college and career readiness skills. • Chapter 2 describes the impact community building has on motivation and learning. It also contains fun community-building activities as well as guidance on how to develop a positive learning environment. • Chapter 3 outlines strategies for building character and offers reflection scenarios, focus words, inspirational sayings, and recommended video clips. • Chapter 4 supplies more than 20 fun, engaging, and motivational character-building activities and games. • Chapter 5 provides outdoor collaborative team-building challenges. • Chapter 6 delves into various aspects of developing a growth mindset through concepts such as assessment, reflection, and goal setting. Building Character, Community, and a Growth Mindset in Physical Education is a powerful and valuable resource because it develops the whole student. It helps students meet important national standards while also preparing them for success in life. This book will help you develop resilient citizens who choose to live active, healthy lifestyles; understand the importance of collaboration and teamwork; and are intrisically motivated to succeed in all areas of their lives.
Winner of the 2023 Outstanding Book Award from AERA's Moral Development and Education SIG! In PRIMED for Character Education, renowned character educator Marvin W Berkowitz boils down decades of research on evidence-based practices and thought-provoking field experience into a clear set of principles that leaders, administrators, and teacher-leaders can implement to help students thrive. The author’s original six-component framework offers a comprehensive guide to shaping purposeful learning environments, healthy relationships, core values and virtues, role models, empowerment, and long-term development in any PreK-12 school or district. This engaging and heartfelt book features tips for practice, anecdotes from award-winning schools, and straightforward tenets from moral education, social-emotional learning, and positive psychology.
Today's students need to learn more than just reading, writing, and arithmetic. They need to learn life skills to successfully manage tasks, form relationships, solve everyday problems, and adapt to the demands of simply growing up. To satisfy those needs, many educators seek effective and lasting programs for their students' academic, emotional, and social growth. This book presents a nine-step, problem-solving approach to help educators not only create such a program, but also shape the school climate to sustain and nurture it. Combining three decades of work with individual schools and districts, authors Bernard Novick, Jeffrey S. Kress, and Maurice J. Elias provide experienced insight to overcoming obstacles to social-emotional learning and character education programs. Their organized approach deals with the implementation process stage by stage, including: * Assessing your school's readiness for change * Setting goals for your program * Anticipating details and roadblocks * Obtaining feedback to modify your implemented program * Creating high standards for accomplishment in academics and character Any educator who is confused by the avalanche of different terminologies and methodologies surrounding social-emotional learning will benefit from this book. This practical and concise guide will help educators create an effective and goal-oriented environment in every school, one where students, staff, and parents are continually sustained in a caring community of learners.
The development of character is a valued objective for many kinds of educational programs that take place both in and outside of school. Educators and administrators who develop and run programs that seek to develop character recognize that the established approaches for doing so have much in common, and they are eager to learn about promising practices used in other settings, evidence of effectiveness, and ways to measure the effectiveness of their own approaches. In July 2016, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine held a workshop to review research and practice relevant to the development of character, with a particular focus on ideas that can support the adults who develop and run out-of-school programs. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.
A sweeping new look at the unheralded transformation that is eroding the foundations of American exceptionalism. Americans today find themselves mired in an era of uncertainty and frustration. The nation's safety net is pulling apart under its own weight; political compromise is viewed as a form of defeat; and our faith in the enduring concept of American exceptionalism appears increasingly outdated. But the American Age may not be ending. In The Vanishing Neighbor, Marc J. Dunkelman identifies an epochal shift in the structure of American life—a shift unnoticed by many. Routines that once put doctors and lawyers in touch with grocers and plumbers—interactions that encouraged debate and cultivated compromise—have changed dramatically since the postwar era. Both technology and the new routines of everyday life connect tight-knit circles and expand the breadth of our social landscapes, but they've sapped the commonplace, incidental interactions that for centuries have built local communities and fostered healthy debate. The disappearance of these once-central relationships—between people who are familiar but not close, or friendly but not intimate—lies at the root of America's economic woes and political gridlock. The institutions that were erected to support what Tocqueville called the "township"—that unique locus of the power of citizens—are failing because they haven't yet been molded to the realities of the new American community. It's time we moved beyond the debate over whether the changes being made to American life are good or bad and focus instead on understanding the tradeoffs. Our cities are less racially segregated than in decades past, but we’ve become less cognizant of what's happening in the lives of people from different economic backgrounds, education levels, or age groups. Familiar divisions have been replaced by cross-cutting networks—with profound effects for the way we resolve conflicts, spur innovation, and care for those in need. The good news is that the very transformation at the heart of our current anxiety holds the promise of more hope and prosperity than would have been possible under the old order. The Vanishing Neighbor argues persuasively that to win the future we need to adapt yesterday’s institutions to the realities of the twenty-first-century American community.
Inspiring true stories of kids from around the world of kids who have overcome obstacles to create success for themselves. The third installment in the Real Kids, Real Stories collection again travels the world with inspirational short stories of young people who overcame adversity and persevered in the face of extreme challenges. Soosan Firooz broke barriers to become Afghanistan’s first female rapper and speaks out about the oppression and hardships women in her country must overcome. David Omondi in Kenya built his own radio station despite a lack of resources. And Kevin Breel speaks out about his own depression to help save lives. The thirty short stories in Real Kids, Real Stories, Real Challenges will inspire readers to believe in themselves, strive for success, overcome obstacles, and create change in the world—even when faced with a challenge. Note: Several stories in this book address intense and serious situations, which some readers may find unsettling.
