Can there be any doubt now of the need for leadership and character education in our schools? When teachers and administrators in the Atlanta public schools made the decision to change student answers, to cheat on standardized tests, no more eloquent case for character education could have been made. There is plenty of blame to go around, of course. The "No Child Left Behind" program left many schools in a "Catch 22" - they had no chance to meet the standards necessary to acquire the funding to improve student achievement to meet the standards. But there is no way to tip-toe around the fact that the poor choice, the dishonorable choice, the insufficient character choice was made by those teachers and administrators who decided to cheat - no matter how they justified it.Role modeling is the most effective teaching tool in the adult workbench. But it can be a two edged sword.
Character is truly defined during difficult times, during those times when making the right choice leads to the greatest sacrifice, when it becomes necessary to contradict the loudest voice or stand against the greatest numbers or tolerate the greatest pain. It is easy to talk the talk but not so easy to walk the walk because to do that requires great conviction and self understanding and yes, education. Like everything else that is done well, it must be taught.
And so I suggest as the first most important change for educators that Educators must decide to teach character, every day, and in every class. We can't wait for the school to decide to emphasize this area or to assume it will be taught by the next teacher during the next hour. Character will not become important to kids until they see that it is important to adults in their world, all the adults. Students will be convinced of this only when character must be taught in every teacher's personal kingdom, their classroom. Character education is developmental, it needs to be taught over time in bits and bytes at each level of student readiness. A curriculum to coordinate the effort is very helpful, but then…any effort is better than none at all.
But Educators must study the brain. If every teacher is in tune to when developmental doors open and close a character curriculum might almost construct itself. After all, what are teachers teaching if not the brain? And how can we teach all of these young brains if we do not understand how they work? Of all teaching levels, it is the teachers of preadolescent students who most need to understand brain development, how the brain functions, brain individuality. Teachers must become experts in brain science and current in brain research, always ready to apply new understanding and flexible enough to leave behind those traditional ideas that research suggests do not work as well.
And this means that Educators must look at time in new ways. The traditional time frames for teaching specific subjects within the day may in fact not be optimal for best assimilation. Evidence has shown that exercising at the beginning the day, specifically by accelerating and sustaining the heart rate with aerobic exercise before classes transforms the brain for peak performance. And that the time usually set aside for sports, the two pm to four pm period, is particularly beneficial for memory consolidation that occurs during sleep the following night and might better suit classes that benefit most from it. Further, it is established that adolescents experience a change in their circadian clock, one that naturally postpones sleepiness for an additional full hour at night. To prevent a sleep deficit and the accompanying learning impediments, an hour of extra sleep should be added each morning. This seldom happens and constitutes an additional struggle for many teens during the most critical educational period of their lives.
Once attuned to the idea of aerobic exercise preceding the studies for the day, we see that Educators need to promote exercise as a priority over organized competition. Now, there is no doubt that this is a hot button topic. The cultures of many schools, particularly private schools, are seriously invested in competitive teams. But competitive athletics has its place and its limits, particularly for pre-adolescent children. Beyond injury concerns, it devours huge amounts of time and is often not a satisfactory platform for exercise for all but the best, who get to play the most. Such teams should be voluntary end-of-day opportunities for dedicated athletes. The other students should be encouraged to play or pursue individual interests.
Finally, Educators must remember that male and female brains are indeed wired differently. Research has established that boys and girls are wired to behave differently socially, intellectually, and physically or, as researches view it, they have significant genetic, neuroanatomical, and behavioral differences. In brain formation, scientists have found large differences in the prefrontal cortex, the limbic system, and the amygdala (larger overall in men than in women, women functioning with the left and men with the right). Biochemically, men produce far more seratonin than women. Larry Cahill's research has demonstrated that men and women under stress recall memories in very different ways, women in detail and men with the 'gist'. Girls learn in a verbal social context, men less so. Hierarchal status behavior patterns in girls tend to be verbal and persuasive, boys physical and direct. When teaching, the emotional and social underpinnings of class involvement can not be ignored. Certain subject matter might best be taught to mixed genders while other subjects might best be taught by separating genders. Educators must be clever observers and utilize autonomy and flexibility to vary from stereotypical, traditional approaches.
By now the reader has observed that the five areas described above are in actuality all part of a symbiotic process in which attention to one part will necessarily stimulate change in another. The much maligned educator of today, restrained by the bonds of unrealistic expectations, time-worn infrastructure, and misguided mechanisms can break free only through an individual effort to understand how they teach what they teach to whom they teach.
