Today's society is flooded with incivility, insults, bullying, self-centeredness, abuse, the breakdown of families and violence. You can add technology addiction, substance abuse, materialism and dishonesty, and it seems clear that our schools cannot be ethical bystanders. Most people see the problem, but there are few widespread commitments to do something about it. Our classrooms are a kaleidoscope of students, all with needs for recognition, self-worth, empathy and belonging. And our curriculum, however, seems to be caught up in the constant pressure to raise test scores nowadays. But should it be our mission to ensure that our youngsters become the kind of quality, trustworthy human beings we all want them to be? “Education worthy of its name is essentially education of character." (Martin Buber, philosopher) Also at the schools of the participating countries demands focussing on teaching values and values have become louder, either by parents, by teachers or even by students. So we've decided to work on the topic of character education, an approach which has been implemented in many schools around the world and whose significance is growing. Because character education focusses on the teaching of core values like trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring and citizenship. Good character education means cultivating virtues through formation of good habits. Character education is most effective when it is spread throughout regular school courses. In science, maths, history and especially in creative subjects and sports. Many character education schools are reporting reduced violence, fewer discipline referrals, less vandalism, improved attendance and higher academic performance. With our partners we have found a reliable group willing to work hard and enthusiastically on this project and hoping to find ways to teach e.g. the six pillars of character education in a suitable way at school which later could be used by other schools, institutes or even districts. We want to become a starting point in making a change. In our project we want to learn, we want to make experiences, we want to challenge ourselves and students and we want to distribute our results in order to open eyes and maybe change school's reality focussing on demands of today's society and its challenges. But not all character education programs are effective. Effective programs engage students activities where good character is emphasized throughout the school environment as well as through the curriculum. In seminars and workshops, in classes and daily school life we want to learn about effective programs and if they can be applied to our schools. That's why, during three of our six learning activities, we plan to bring students aged 14-18 together, to work in international groups, to experience the impact of character education in daily lessons and to evaluate the results.Teachers shall be introduced and educated in the topic of character education, students shall be taught respecting the principles of character education and given ways to evaluate and monitor themselves and parents shall be informed about new ideas and ways. In the end it shall be evaluated if it's recommendable to establish a character education program at each school, within which subjects and how. A guidebook, a video and an internet blog will report about the project work and its results. As a final product we want to create a guideline about character education summarizing what we have learned, experienced and found out. It shall be evaluated and highlighted how important character education nowadays is. Additionally the production of a promotional video is planned to attract other teaching institutions. In multiplier events and dissemination events we will report about our work and experiences. Summarized, the key aims of the project are to inform, to experience, to evaluate, to report and to recommend. We want to increase the understanding of effective approaches that support other schools and colleges to develop and build character and we want to encourage colleagues and organisations to prioritise and implement their own initiatives. Character education underpins all we seek to achieve in our schools. It is possible for any school to focus on grades, behaviour, careers, attendance, and for them to see improvements through their efforts on each. However, if the focus is instead placed primarily on the qualities of mind and character needed for current and future human flourishing, all of the other things will begin to fall in to place.
Today's society is flooded with incivility, insults, bullying, self-centeredness, abuse, the breakdown of families and violence. You can add technology addiction, substance abuse, materialism and dishonesty, and it seems clear that our schools cannot be ethical bystanders. Most people see the problem, but there are few widespread commitments to do something about it. Our classrooms are a kaleidoscope of students, all with needs for recognition, self-worth, empathy and belonging. And our curriculum, however, seems to be caught up in the constant pressure to raise test scores nowadays. But should it be our mission to ensure that our youngsters become the kind of quality, trustworthy human beings we all want them to be? “Education worthy of its name is essentially education of character." (Martin Buber, philosopher) Also at the schools of the participating countries demands focussing on teaching values and values have become louder, either by parents, by teachers or even by students. So we decided to work on the topic of character education, an approach which has been implemented in many schools around the world and whose significance is growing. Because character education focusses on the teaching of core values like trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring and citizenship. Good character education means cultivating virtues through formation of good habits. Character education is most effective when it is spread throughout regular school courses. In science, maths, history and especially in creative subjects and sports. Many character education schools are reporting reduced violence, fewer discipline referrals, less vandalism, improved attendance and higher academic performance. With our partners we found a reliable group willing to work hard and enthusiastically on this project and hoping to find ways to teach e.g. the six pillars of character education in a suitable way at school which later could be used by other schools, institutes or even districts. We wanted to become a starting point in making a change. In our project we learned, we made first experiences, we challenged ourselves and students. We also wanted to distribute our results in order to open eyes and maybe change school's reality focussing on demands of today's society and its challenges. But due to COVID pandemic we were not able to finish the project and were stopped in the middle of work. Meetings were held in Germany, Portugal and Spain forming international classes in which we implemented key terms of Character Education in common subjects like sports and arts. In between students participated in activities on our eTwinning platform and exchanged ideas and got in contact. All results so far were published on our blog http://charactermatterserasmus.blogspot.com. We found out that effective programs engage students activities where good character is emphasized throughout the school environment as well as through the curriculum. In seminars and workshops, in classes and daily school life we learned about how they can be applied to our schools. During three of our six learning activities, we planned to bring students aged 14-18 together, to work in international groups, to experience the impact of character education in daily lessons and to evaluate the results.Teachers should be introduced and educated in the topic of character education, students should be taught respecting the principles of character education and given ways to evaluate and monitor themselves and parents should be informed about new ideas and ways. Due to COVID pandemic only two af these activities could be realized. So it is not possible to evaluated if it's recommendable to establish a character education program at each school, within which subjects and how. A guidebook or a video to report about the project work and its results could not be published. Summarized, the key aims of the project were to inform, to experience, to evaluate, to report and to recommend. We increased the understanding of effective approaches that support other schools and colleges to develop and build character and we wanted to encourage colleagues and organizations.