Reading, Writing, 'Rithmetic...and Responsibility.

• Author: Exstrom, Michelle
• Position: Character education

Should schools teach values such as honesty and respect along with traditional subjects? Those that do say attendance is up, incidents requiring discipline are down, and children are reminding each other about proper behavior.

Johnny, ready for another day of elementary school, hops out of his father's car. As usual, he is greeted with a banner across the front of his school that reads: "Welcome to our school where character counts!" As his father drives away, Johnny notices the familiar bumper sticker on the car proclaiming to the world that Johnny attends a "school of character."

As he saunters to his classroom, signs posted on the pillar inside the school and on classroom bulletin boards remind Johnny of the importance of six character traits--trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring and citizenship. When class begins, Ms. Smith reminds Johnny's class that today they will be collecting donations for children in foster care and that tomorrow will be the weekly class meeting where they are encouraged to resolve conflicts they may have with others.

In today's world, where we are bombarded with negative images of school shootings and youth violence, it is probably difficult to believe that schools like this exist. Indeed, they do. In fact, this scene describes a typical day at Atlantis Elementary School, a public school in Cocoa, Fla., where students are known as "kids for character."

"There's just a warm feeling you get when you enter our school," says Vicki Mace, principal for the past five years. She insists that there is "nothing magical about this. There's just lots of pride, and we are building school tradition."

This program might not be magical, but parents and educators in the community are claiming that the school's character education program has brought about significant change. Attendance is up, incidents requiring discipline are down, and children are reminding each other about proper behavior.

Schools all over the country are experiencing similar results. From North Carolina to California and from New Jersey to Washington, schools are reporting significant changes in student behavior as a result of comprehensive character education programs. In fact, a study conducted by the University of South Carolina's Center for Child and Family Studies shows that nine out of 10 South Carolina school administrators report improvement in student attitudes and behavior, and 60 percent report better academic performance when character education programs are used.

SO WHAT IS IT?

"The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically...Intelligence plus character--that is the goal of true education," said Martin Luther King Jr. Advocates of character education agree. They believe that there is a core set of values that a person of good character possesses, including honesty, morality, respect for self and others, self-control, fairness, responsibility, obedience, generosity, patience and kindness.

These values are traditionally taught at home or in church, and proponents of...