Good Character Education is Good Education

By Elaine Griffin

“A child is the only known substance from which a responsible adult can be made.”
–Tom Lickona, "Raising Good Children"

The Common Trust, a set of shared values at USM, includes five core values: respect, trust, honesty, fairness, and kindness. These words are etched on plaques hanging on our classroom walls. They are inscribed on a gigantic rock at the Middle School’s entrance. They are infused into almost every aspect of school life, from classroom expectations, to the disciplinary system, to the norms that govern unstructured spaces like the lunchroom and playground. 

We educators tell students that practicing these values will lead to academic gains and personal growth. But how exactly does this work? How can values make you smarter? More importantly, how can they make you good? 

To delve into the data behind character education, I interviewed one of the world's leading experts on the subject, Dr. Marvin Berkowitz. Berkowitz authored a book for educators called “PRIMED for Character Education: Six Design Principles for School Improvement.” His overarching premise is that schools can be ecosystems for good character development if they are designed to promote what he calls “the flourishing of human goodness.” 

Unwritten Rules Matter Most

While Berkowitz acknowledges that common language around values clarify the mission and purpose of a school, he finds that the true values of a school are embedded within its culture. Berkowitz told me that “children and adolescents are highly influenced and constrained by the collective culture in which they are immersed.” Therefore when he visits schools to do consulting, he looks beyond the values professed on walls to examine “the unwritten rules.” 

True to this definition of a culture as something akin to a vibe, Berkowitz didn’t try to give it an overly pointed definition when I asked him what culture entails. He characterized it as “a way of being,” stating “it’s how we are with each other.” It’s embodied in “what’s allowed and not allowed.” 

An example.

When Berkowitz was invited to consult at an elite private school in Texas, he saw concrete signs that the character education program needed improvement. He remembers touring the Upper School and seeing a hallway littered with chip bags, soda cans, and water bottles. “The custodians—mostly Hispanic—were cleaning it all up,” he recalled. The piles of trash conveyed the distance between the students and the staff, and that left a deep impression on him. He concluded his story by telling me, “I always chide schools that leave out categorical groups, and it’s usually the non-professional support staff.” 

Berkowitz told me that in character-driven schools, relationships are “a network, a tapestry, a spiderweb, connecting everybody to everybody.” Including everybody, he contends, means including “custodians, secretaries, bus drivers, and others who often get left out of the work that happens to build a positive school culture.”

The High Impact of the Adults’ Relationships 

Berkowitz carefully examines the relationships between the adults in a school building when assessing school culture. “Many people would not look at adult culture at all as being central to character education and certainly not the key to increasing academic achievement,” he writes. But the research makes clear “again and again” just how important such relationships are to a school's overall culture. 

This makes sense. When teachers feel supported by their colleagues and trusted by their administrators, “they work harder and care more about students and about educating them.” The students’ performance improves as a result. Building a positive adult culture begins at the top. “It is the leader’s job to take care of the adult culture, and the teachers’ job to take care of the kids,” Berkowitz writes.

After Berkowitz considered the importance of faculty and staff relationships, I asked him to tell me the best ways to nurture students’ relationships with one another. “That’s reasonably easy by comparison,” he told me. 

Building Relationships Across Grade Levels

Berkowitz contends that mixing grade levels in strategic ways is essential. Older students can and should be mentors and models to younger students, influencing their behaviors in positive ways. We have a lot of examples of such cross-divisional connections at USM. This is done organically in the dining room and at recess, as various grade levels interact in unstructured ways. This is also done intentionally through leadership opportunities. For example, our 8th grade National History Day students help to mentor our 4th grade students on their first major project, the Tower Project. Our 7th graders make KIVA games and teach them to kindergarten students through 4th graders. Our Middle School Mathcounts team is coached by Upper School students. Having attended Mathcounts meetings, I can attest to the power that an Upper School coach has in igniting a passion for math in a Middle Schooler.

Teachers as Role Models

Teachers’ relationships with their students are also critical to character education. In his book’s title, PRIMED, the “M” stands for modeling. Berkowitz writes that “we need to be the character we want to see developing in our students.” This is especially true as kids enter adolescence and become what Berkowitz calls “hypocrisy detectives.” In our interview, he joked that “teachers may try to fool themselves into believing that they can wear Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak at times, but students are always watching them.” This means that if faculty expect students to complete work on time, they must hand back graded work in a timely manner. If faculty expect students to treat all of their classmates with respect, they must show respect for all of their students. This modeling extends to parents and caregivers, too. If parents want to nurture the intellectual lives of their children, they must read books themselves. If they want kids to log fewer hours online, they should put away their own devices.

According to Berkowitz, our actions speak much louder than words. He cited a famous quotation by Ralph Waldo Emerson both in his book and during our conversation: “Your actions speak so loudly that I cannot hear a word you are saying.” Morals aren’t about saying the “correct” words. They’re reflected in what you do, which speaks volumes about who you are. 

Building Character through the Curriculum

Berkowitz advises that character education be embedded in academic lessons so that students can practice sharing, resolving differences, and delving into ethical questions. He suggests that teachers harness cooperative learning when doing this work because it is designed to foster relationships. 

For example, when preparing students for a collaborative activity, a teacher might talk directly to students about how they can devise a system for sharing the materials or how they can navigate disagreements when they arise. Berkowitz believes that by “adding two or three minutes to a cooperative learning task, a teacher can turbocharge relationships.” He also discussed how important it is to engage in moral dilemmas with students when studying novels or history. Students need to grapple with ethical questions, explore multiple perspectives, and study historical and literary role models.

Motivating Students to Act with Integrity

Most important: for character education to succeed, the students themselves need to be motivated to act with integrity. “How can we motivate kids to act with character?” I asked Berkowitz. 

He began by telling me what doesn’t work. “Material rewards for good behavior, like a sticker or a pencil that sparkles, do not build character and can actually erode character,” he said. For the student, “the focus becomes the good thing that happens to me. If that good thing isn’t available—the piece of candy—then I don’t have any reason to do the right thing.” In fact, “the research says that concrete rewards, such as a material thing, actually reduces the likelihood of the internalization of the value that's being promoted. It actually reduces it, so it works against our purposes. Unfortunately, giving and getting a reward is a very seductive way of trying to influence behavior,” Berkowitz reflected.

He added, “I've discovered over time that the kids really don't care a whole lot about rewards. They have no trouble living without that stuff. It's the adults who are addicted to it—the educators and the parents. Human beings, deep down in their souls, do not need a Jolly Rancher. What they need is social affirmation. They need somebody to say, ‘I see you and I value you. I appreciate you.’” By acknowledging kids for their good deeds quietly and without an audience, we can make them feel appreciated and respected, inspiring them to do more good deeds in the future. 

Just as material rewards cannot motivate kids to be good, punishments do little to change negative behaviors. Berkowitz contends that when educators and other adults “punish kids, they may stop whatever misbehavior they have identified at that moment and think they’ve succeeded, but they’re wrong. It’s like multiplicative Whac-a-Mole. You whack one misbehavior, and up pops two more.” 

Instead, adults should approach misbehavior with curiosity and conversation, understanding that when kids cross the line, they are testing out how the world works. Berkowitz joked that in one school kids called this approach to restorative practices “TTD,” or “Talked to Death.” “They’d say, ‘Can I just get a detention? I don’t want to talk anymore,’” he laughed. But genuine and lasting behavioral change comes with reflection and must be accompanied by internal motivation. “Adults,” he said, “must shift from telling to asking.” They should pepper kids with questions: “Why did you do that?” “What happened right before you did that?” and “How did it make you feel?”

Striving for Excellence

Towards the end of his book, Berkowitz talks about how important it is to set high expectations and focus on excellence. When it comes to striving for excellence, Berkowitz often invokes a saying he learned from a middle school principal years ago: “Dream big. Think small. Act now.” 
“This is a major truth in the universe,” he stated. “You want to have the dream, the dream of excellence. Then, you’ve got to think small and ask what can I achieve now? Then, you just need to do something towards it.”

This maxim applies to both teachers and students, he said. “I have so many teachers who come to me, and this phrase is what liberates them, because they want to transform their whole school to be the kind of school we’re talking about, and they don't have that leverage as a classroom teacher. So, I say, 'don’t let go of that dream. But right now, think smaller. Think about what you can do to move your school in that direction and then just do something.'”

Berkowitz’s book and conversation inspire me to “just do something” toward more fully living the Common Trust and thereby making those important words come to life, every day. While I am intensely proud of the rich relationships that distinguish our Middle School, I intend to work with faculty and staff on creating an even more positive culture, one that allows all of us to dream big about how to build a better community of learners, leaders, and citizens for our collective future.

“Faculty and staff” and, yes, I intend to work with you as parents, too. I write these essays each month because you’re our partners, integral to our success in fostering a world in which your children can build a brighter future for themselves and all of us. I challenge you, as I promise here I will continue challenging myself, our staff, and our faculty: Let’s live the values that the Common Trust so beautifully embodies. In every interaction, with each other and with the children who bring us together, let’s more fully practice what we daily preach. 

About Elaine Griffin:

Elaine Griffin has worked at University School of Milwaukee since 1998, serving as the head of Middle School since 2019. Previously, she served as the assistant head of Upper School and taught Upper School English. She has both a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in English, and served as the president of the Whitefish Bay Library.