1. Schools provide one of the moral environments where tangible opportunities exist for students to interact with daily moral dilemmas.

2. Character is formed more by the little daily moral dilemmas than by life’s big moral dilemmas.

3. Character is shaped as students mentally work through those moral dilemmas.
(See: Lawrence Kohlberg).

4. A character education program that is embedded and infused throughout a school building or school district offers the structured training in self-discipline that students may not get elsewhere.

5. Character education is not just another mental and conceptual classroom learning exercise.

6. Character education is all about connecting universally accepted positive character qualities with real life situations at school and at home.

7. Character education is teaching students how to think, speak and act in ways that demonstrate those positive character qualities.  The developmental learning experience of character education demonstrates the benefits that result from a lifestyle of positive character. 

8. Character education is an effort to balance the developmental impact of other negative cultural influencers perceived to be relevant in the lives of students.

9. Character education is one of the social capital tools that contributes to the developmental assets of healthy communities. (See:  Search Institute).

10. The public perception of one’s reputation as an adult is based on a pattern of behavior over a lengthening period of time.  Character is who you are all the time not just what you do in selective situations when motivated by a self-serving agenda.

Dr. Dick Daniels
President, Changing Lives
dickd@mark1.org
www.teachingtochangelives.com
www.coachingtochangelives.com
800-932-7235