The Character Road

Today I'm excited because I just spent three AmAzInG days at the Charatecter Education Partnership's Annual Character Forum with educators who are passionate about character development, leaving me on an incredible character high! I had the pleasure of spending three hours with and speaking to the group of 2012 NSOC (National School of Character) educators and I am so encouraged and energized because our future looks bright with their students in the lead. These kids know where they're going because their mentors are guiding their journey down Character Road.

Unfortunately, that's not true for everyone. I'm not saying that you HAVE to earn the distinction of School of Character to know that your students are kids with character. But consider the experience of the boy in

Harry Chapin's Flowers Are Red:

Seriously, this song made me cry, but I was so happy when the budding artist was given another chance at a new school where the smiling teacher encouraged him to use all of the colors in his crayon box. I saw this quote in one of the airports:

Out-of-the-box thinking requires

out-of-the-box doing.

Yep, it's more than just identifying some values that your students can remember and recite. It's more than just helping your school family to embrace and ascribe to those virtues. Those two steps are very important, for sure. But putting it all together by giving your students voice and choice so that they take those virtues and values and become independent thinkers, leaders who are able to navigate life outside of that proverbial box, that's the mountaintop experience that these NSOCs are giving to their school families.