|
||||
  
 
 |
Cache County School District places emphasis on 'character' education By
Kim Barraclough
Cache County and Logan School District are using character education courses to teach students how to be better citizens. With the new school year approaching students can look forward to character education courses integrated into reading, math and science.
"In today's world it's as important to teach students how to live, as it is to teach students how to make a living," Richard Jensen, of Logan City School District said.
Logan City School District uses the Aegis program, which teaches students nine basic character traits for individual self-governance. Some of these traits teach students to realize that people are important and each individual is unique. Students are also taught how to be trustworthy, to be considerate of others, obey rules and be socially responsible. "We live in an environment of accountability," Jensen said. "Students need to learn how to make choices that will help them be a better person in their family and community." Character traits are modeled by parents and people in the community, Jensen said. "Teaching children how to be better citizens isn't just a parent's responsibility," Jensen said. "We need community support, It's everyone's responsibility." Jaynan Chancellor, school counselor for Cache County School District said, "Character education courses have helped children develop a positive attitude about learning."
Character education courses are fairly new. They have only been in effect for about three years. The legislature mandated that Utah schools need to teach students basic citizenship skills and acceptable social behavior. "Character education isn't one more item on the plate, it is the plate," Chancellor said.
According to Chancellor, the philosophy behind character education programs is to minimize problems between different cultures and teach children how to be accepting of others. "The main goal for character education programs is to create a more friendly, peaceable, responsible world," Chancellor said. Cache County School districts use several different programs to teach character education. The district allows each individual school to decide which program(s) they use. Dare and Youth 2000 are two of the programs that are being used. Dare teaches students to be drug free. Youth 2000 is a mentoring program where a core group of students who have shown exemplary behavior use their skills to teach other children. Kaye Jacobson, a teacher for Cache County School District, has used the Character Counts program in her classroom. This program has six basic values, fairness, responsibility, integrity, trustworthiness, caring and honesty, that teach children how to be better citizens. Activities can be integrated into core subjects in different ways. Jacobson's class talked about kindness. Jacobson made a tree trunk and for each act of kindness done or said, students were allowed to place a leaf on each of the branches. By the end of the school year the students had accumulated over 1600 leaves on the tree.
Jacobson also has honesty problems in her classroom and said she was able to stop the problem through the Character Counts program. "I had a student who admitted to me they had been dishonest," Jacobson said. "I praised the student for admitting to me what they had done. I think that this program teaches children how to be courageous."
"Character education programs teach children how to resolve conflict and be responsible for their actions," Chancellor said. "If children are focusing on doing good things there will be a positive outcome," Chancellor said.
|
Archived Months:
January
1999 January
2000 |
||