Following are some strategies to promote character development in our students...
- Connect your classroom rules to virtues so as to provide an underlying theme and purpose for them (Molnar, 1997).
- Model respect to your students and coworkers.
- Ensure consequences are logical and involve reparation (Lickona, 1991).
- "Teach what's right before something goes wrong" (Lickona, 2012, p. 2).
- Consider promoting weekly character challenges (Lickona).
- Develop 'upstanders' (Lickona).
- Develop a school-wide code of conduct for teachers and students (Stengel, 2006).
- Teach students how to mediate. - Data suggests that mentoring programs can provide students with a framework for resolving conflict, decreasing office referrals and increasing instructional time (Finck, 2003).
- Avoid no-tolerance rules (Nucci, 2008).
- Create an environment based on mutual respect. - "It is not tougher penalties that will produce socially acceptable behaviors but, rather, the deeply held desire to remain in a cherished caring relation" (Nucci, p. 168).
- Incorporate collaboration as an opportunity for students to gain social skills (Bruce, 2011).
- Use a negotaition station for students to discuss their different perspectives surrounding a conflict and understand the disconnect (Bruce).
- Establish (and revisit) protocol and routines with your classes (Bruce); maintain expectations.
- Teach relaxation techniques, and MODEL them yourself (Bruce).
