 
|
|||||||||
              
|
Mt. Lebanon wins award for character education
Thursday, October 19, 2000 By Eleanor Chute, Post-Gazette Education Writer
It didn't take a national award for Mt. Lebanon ninth-grader Joseph Crowley to know that the district's character education has made a difference in his life.
But he will gladly talk about that difference today when the district is named a "National School of Character" winner in Philadelphia today.
Mt. Lebanon has been singled out by the Character Education Partnership, a nonprofit, nonpartisan, nonsectarian group based in Washington, D.C.
The character education it encourages is "a nonreligious sort of thing," said partnership spokeswoman Andrea Grenadier. "There are various qualities that across the board we can all agree upon are important qualities for kids to have."
While nine other schools also were named winners, Mt. Lebanon is the only district selected.
In elementary school, Crowley received character education through the Heartwood program, which emphasizes seven values -- respect, love, justice, honesty, courage, loyalty and hope -- through examples in literature. Certain books -- mostly multicultural ones -- are read aloud and discussed. The words also are posted in classrooms and emphasized as situations arise.
"Character education has made a big difference in my life," Crowley said.
"It really enforces what you learn at home and what your parents teach you. I think it's changed me into a more caring person."
A video on the district's character education program will be shown at a community forum at 7:30 tonight in the Mt. Lebanon Tennis Center. The forum is sponsored by the Mt. Lebanon Community Relations Board and is focusing on "how to discourage discrimination and promote mutual respect among races, religions and nationalities within our community."
Mt. Lebanon has been building its character education program over the past decade. It was started by then assistant superintendent Henry Huffman, who now directs character education at California University of Pennsylvania.
The district's approach begins in elementary school with the Heartwood program in each grade, including using the books two or three times a month and emphasizing the values. Respect, for example, is the emphasized value for September and October.
Jody Colby, a first-grade teacher at Foster and a member of the character education resource team, said the values set "a tone for behavior."
In middle and high school, teachers look for what officials call "teachable moments" to talk about core values, such as the importance of honesty in science lab results or how Brutus should treat Mark Anthony in "Julius Caesar." Students also are encouraged to help others through community service or tutoring peers or younger students.
During this calendar year, the character education approach was expanded into the community as well.
Some of what Mt. Lebanon does isn't unique. Heartwood, for example, is used by more than 500 schools or school districts in 38 states. The program began around a kitchen table in Evans City in 1986.
In addition to Mt. Lebanon, Heartwood has been purchased by school districts such as Fox Chapel Area, Hampton, McKeesport Area, Pittsburgh, Quaker Valley, Shaler Area Wilkinsburg, Woodland Hills in Allegheny County; Seneca Valley in Butler County; Greater Latrobe in Westmoreland County and Indiana Area, according to the Heartwood Institute in Oakland.
George Wilson, Mt. Lebanon assistant superintendent for instruction, said the character education program grew out of the district's 1991 strategic plan.
"There were signs in society at large that there was a general decline in courtesy. We weren't plagued with violence or the kinds of immoral acts that you saw in other places, but we did sense there was an erosion to a small degree in how students were interacting with each other," he said.
In concert with the strategic plan, the district adopted six core values of the "morally mature person" -- respects human dignity, demonstrates active responsibility for the welfare of others, integrates individual interests and social responsibilities, demonstrates integrity, applies moral principals when making choices and judgments, and seeks peaceful resolution of conflict.
Christine Heisler, Washington Elementary principal and chair of the character education resource team, believes character education has changed the atmosphere in the schools.
"Regardless of where you walk, whether elementary, middle school or high school, it's a philosophy. It's not a separate program. You see the core values. You hear kids using the language," she said.
In the new draft of the district's strategic plan, Heisler said, character education is still an integral part.
"Ten years later, we're still growing and still changing, but character education still seems to be one of the common threads through the district that remains important," she said.
|
||||||||
