This Month's Best Practice
Each Month the Maryland Center for Character Education (MCCE) picks one of the Best Practices from a Character Education award winning school to share with you.
JUNE
This month's Best Practices is from an award winning school from 2008-2009.
BEST CHARACTER EDUCATION PRACTICES
School: The Children's Guild in Anne Arundel County
Address: 1399 Forest Drive, Annapolis, MD 21403
Principal: Kelly Spanoghe
E-Mail: spanoghe@childrensguild.orgPhone: 410-269-7700
Title of Best Practice: Character Education Integrated Throughout the Curriculum
Primary Principles Emphasized: Principles 1 - 11
Objective(s): To teach children the values and life skills necessary for a successful life, one filled with caring, contribution and commitment.
Description:
The Children’s Guild is a private, separate day school that services students identified for special education services under the disability of emotional disturbance, autism or multi-handicapped. The mission of our school is to teach children the values and life skills necessary for a successful life, one filled with caring, contribution and commitment, empowering each with:
The vision to see – opportunities within adversity and the value of setting goals to reach.
The courage to try – and the value of accepting obstacles as challenges to meet.
The will to succeed – and the value of making the commitment to preserve.
This mission encompasses the significance that character plays in everything we do and influences the development of the adult mindset to promote a culture that emits the values we espouse.
Principle 1:
A cornerstone of The Children’s Guild philosophy is to change the adult mindset to align with the values of the organization. Transformation Education is the organization philosophy that emphasizes:
*Values over treatment
*An integrated curriculum/program that incorporates the arts
*A stimulating learning environment that challenges the intellect, touches the emotions and excites the senses
*Changing staff attitudes and behaviors rather than those of the child
*Experiential learning, contextual thinking, concepts over facts, questions over answers, and process over knowledge
*A philosophy that is child-centered, family focused and community based
*Norms over rules.These expectations permeate every message the organization sends. Every morning staff meet for a “Culture Card” meeting. The purpose of this meeting is to transform the adult mindset to align with the values of Transformation Education and provide focus for the day. Both staff and students embark on the journey of personal growth through their experiences at our school.
Principle 2, 3, and 6:
An integrated curriculum is the instructional delivery format utilized which centers around a character trait each month. Staff constructs curricular maps that depict the relationship between the content and character trait. Each subject and cultural art (art, music, physical education) identifies the relationship to the character trait we are teaching to our students. Through visual representation, exploration of the character trait through each subject, application to self during social skills and group therapy, and real world problem solving experiences students begin to understand the interconnectedness between character values, the curriculum and their surrounding world.
Students begin their day with a “morning meeting” to explore the schoolwide character/behavior focus of the day and review their schedule. Much like the adults, this sends the message that values permeate our culture and the significance of modeling and reinforcing prosocial behaviors. Social skills training provides opportunities for students to develop, practice and improve their prosocial behaviors. Character education curriculums (Second Step, Character Counts, Skillstreaming) are implemented in each classroom three times a week by the classroom team (Special Education Teacher, Teaching Assistant, School Counsel). Staff and students together learn how to build a community of caring individuals. Character development is integrated into every aspect of their day which enables students to generalized their learnings into every day situations and apply them in various settings.
Principle 4 and 5:
The Children’s Guild implements the “Collaborative Problem Solving” approach by Ross Green. The philosophy is “children do well is they can” which requires the adults to shift their mindset from “children do well if they want to” and engage in collaborative exchanges with the child. This approach emphasizes that problem solving is something adults do with child and not to children. The problem solving process entails development of a Plan B with a child consisting of three stages: empathy stage, defining the problem and invitation. Students feel empathy from adults regarding their struggles, are treated with respect and collaboratively resolve the issue so each person’s concerns are met. Since implementation of this approach we have experiences a significant decrease in our use of physical restraint (see chart). The school community demonstrates a commitment to caring for one another and mutual respect.
Students in all grades participate in service learning experiences. We believe that students should learn to give back to their communities. Each classroom generates ideas for service learning projects (cooperative learning), formulates a plan, implements the plan, tracks their time on the project and completes a reflection component of their visit(s). Projects have included such activities as; hot chocolate sales for the homeless, work at a rescue horse farm, blankets for SPCA, and food for the homeless shelters. As a result of these experiences, students feel good about themselves and their ability to help others.
Principle 7, 8, and 9:
The Children’s Guild has participated in the Positive Behaviors Interventions and Supports (PBIS) program through the Maryland Department of Education for the past 7 years. Since our involvement we have been recognized as an Exemplar School each year. The program has enabled us to develop schoolwide behavioral expectations, teach the expectations, recognize students’ for demonstrating the behaviors, develop systems to support student behaviors and academic challenges and use data decision making strategies to improve program success. Positive recognition for demonstrating prosocial behaviors results in a positive school climate conducive for learning. Students are recognized for demonstrating the desired behavior by both verbal praise and a “domino” (visual representation for desired behavior). Students chart their dominoes and exchange them for social interactions with peers (celebrations, field trips) or during the holidays to purchase gifts for their loved ones. Quarterly award ceremonies center on character traits. Each student is recognized for the character trait/value they evidenced progress towards during that quarter. This again reinforces, and provides examples of, what character traits look like in others.
Staff professional development and moral reflection is a prominent part of our school culture. Staff engages in professional development activities weekly focused on academic and social/emotional development. Continuous quality improvement data is reviewed and issues identified. Staff utilizes various problem solving tools to explore obstacles to our success, develop action plans and implement new systems. In addition, continuous training is provided on research best practices to develop/refine skills and our effectiveness with the students we teach.
School leadership fosters, develops and refines the character education initiative within the school setting. Classroom walk-throughs are conducted which yields data regarding the climate of the school and instructional practices. Weekly staff meetings are held to explore staff concerns, develop/refine systems, plan activities and recognize staff for their accomplishments. Time is committed to professional development that engages staff in meaningful learning activities that not only benefits the staff but the students as well.
Principle 10:
The character education initiative is extended to our families in various ways. Each month the newsletter highlights how each classroom is making connections to the monthly value/character trait through the curriculum. Counselors include a section in the newsletter to assist parents in working effectively with their child’s behavioral difficulties aligned with our character trait. PBIS updates are included in the newsletter to inform parents of activities that are occurring throughout the school to create a positive school climate. The school counselors communicate with families on a regular basis to apprise them of their student’s progress. Students receive a daily progress note that reflects their performance towards schoolwide behavioral expectations and social skills. Also, parent conferences are held to hear their concerns, assist them in understanding their child’s aberrant behaviors and strategies to promote prosocial behavioral development at home.
Principle 11:
Assessment of the character education program consists of both implementation outcome measures and student progress measures. Crisis intervention data indicates the amount of time students are engaged in learning and not accessing crisis intervention services (exclusion, seclusion and/or physical restraint). Satisfaction surveys are another means of assessing the culture of our school. Parent surveys, stakeholder surveys, student surveys and staff surveys are distributed and the data aggregated to determine the level of satisfaction. Based on the data, a plan is developed to address the areas in need of improvement. Every year staff completes the PBIS survey which identifies systems that are in place and others that need improvement. In addition, two other assessments are conducted with PBIS that assess the culture and values that permeate the school environment.
Student assessment of character development includes; Social Skills Rating Scale which is a standardized assessment tool that measures student’s social/emotional/behavioral development and is administered twice a year, portfolio development provides an assessment of the student’s growth both academically and behaviorally throughout the year, IEP goals and objectives indicate mastery towards achievement of requisite learning behaviors and social/emotional goals. Each of these measures provides information regarding the student’s ability to self-regulate, comply with schooolwide expectations and demonstrate respect for themselves, others and property.
In celebration of our character education initiatives, this year we held an Integrated Arts Celebration. A local artist-in residence participated in the event to help our students create a mural of the character traits/values learned about all year and a video reflecting their thoughts about their own growth and development. It was a wonderful experience for everyone involved and a proclamation to how much our students have internalized the values we have taught.
The Maryland Center for Character Education
29 West Susquehanna Ave., Suite 300, Baltimore, MD 21204
E-Mail: MCCEcharacter@aol.com
