Start the Year with Character

Explore how to establish norms and expectations for your class by teaching character lessons at the beginning of the school year.

We recommend beginning your school year with character lessons. Teaching character at the beginning of the year helps you establish norms and expectations for the class. Character lessons can be engaging and interactive.

Here are some traits we recommend:

adaptability
caring/kindness
ownership
friendship
mindfulness
grit

Did you know, Quindew now offers teacher-driven lessons. Our teacher driven-lessons offer engaging character lessons. Go to our Curriculum page to learn more.

Here is a character mini-lesson from a Quindew middle school teacher:

"One of most important components of my curriculum is character education/building. The first character quality I establish is attentiveness. I define attentiveness as “the worth of a person or a task by giving your undivided attention.” When I introduce attentiveness, I have a volunteer student come up to the front of the room and I instruct the student to tell me about a vacation. I tell him/her to keep talking no matter what I do. As the student begins to unfold his/her exciting vacation, I begin to purposely ignore what is being said and look in my top pocket, my wallet, at the ceiling, etc. At this point, students are laughing and the volunteer is playing along. Then, I look at my volunteer and say, “Oh, I am sorry, I just got distracted. Would you try explaining it again?” The student starts over, and I quickly get distracted again.

By this time, the volunteer becomes agitated even though he/she knows this is a demonstration of what not to do. We reset one more time, but this time I listen. I stand facing the volunteer and make eye contact. Nothing is in my hands. My focus is on the student telling the story. I interact with the student and show great excitement in what he/she says. Then, I turn to the class and ask them what they thought about how I treated the story teller? They all agree that I was very rude and not very attentive the first two times. I look at the class and ask, “How do you think teachers feel when you do that to them while they teach?” They get it immediately. From that day forward, if a student is not paying attention, I don’t have to yell or get upset, I simply say, “You are not being very attentive.” The student knows the definition and he immediately corrects his/her own behavior and usually says, “Sorry Mr. LeMaster.” Problem solved. Character building is the best classroom management strategy I have. The ownership is placed back on the students where it belongs and the lessons they learn transfer to real world experience.

These things I have shared with you have been very successful for me for all of my teaching career. I recommend implementing any of these ideas. I am sure all of you have excellent first day of school ideas. Thank you for all that you do for our young people!"

Have a great start to the new school year!