Project Details
As part of the Center’s remit to make a real contribution to progress in the moral life and learning of American people, work started on the Leadership for Character project in January 2020.
Funded by the Kern Family Foundation and the Superintendent’s Academy, LFC involves working with educational leaders in Alabama to develop virtue-based character education approaches, especially as related to principals and superintendents, both aspiring and existing. This involves enhancing various provisions at the University such as the Superintendent’s Academy and the MA in Educational Leadership, together with professional development delivered in partnership with School Superintendent Association (SSA) and Council for Leaders in Alabama Schools (CLAS).
LFC spans the Departments of Educational Leadership and Educational Studies.
The core purpose of the LFC project is:
to cultivate among educational leaders a level of professional practical wisdom that will give them the vision, knowledge, fortitude and skill to create and maintain ‘just communities’ in schools whereby the cultivation of students characters is the most important aim, achieved through human relationships together with direct and indirect methods of ‘teaching’ and reflection.
Funded by the Kern Family Foundation and the Superintendent’s Academy, LFC involves working with educational leaders in Alabama to develop virtue-based character education approaches, especially as related to principals and superintendents, both aspiring and existing. This involves enhancing various provisions at the University such as the Superintendent’s Academy and the MA in Educational Leadership, together with professional development delivered in partnership with School Superintendent Association (SSA) and Council for Leaders in Alabama Schools (CLAS).
LFC spans the Departments of Educational Leadership and Educational Studies.
The core purpose of the LFC project is:
to cultivate among educational leaders a level of professional practical wisdom that will give them the vision, knowledge, fortitude and skill to create and maintain ‘just communities’ in schools whereby the cultivation of students characters is the most important aim, achieved through human relationships together with direct and indirect methods of ‘teaching’ and reflection.
Approach & Framework for Character Education
|
Approach and Framework
Our approach to character development emphasizes pursuit of student flourishing as the overarching purpose of education. The realization of each students’ human potential is a holistic educational endeavor, with both moral and academic dimensions necessary for living a modern day ‘good life’. Teachers and educational leaders instinctively share this view that education ought to be aimed at human flourishing involving both academic and character development.
Children are born with capacity to acquire virtue, as integral to character, through practical experience. This requires conscious effort by those around them in addition to appropriate experiences and relationships, invariably involving exposure to good role models and exemplars (e.g. teachers, parents, friends etc.).
We believe that good character has intrinsic worth involving meaning, purpose, hard work, and striving for excellence in several important domains, such as intellectual, moral, civic, and performance virtues.
Our Leadership for Character Framework can be found here.
Community and Character
Of course, each community is different, and the Leadership for Character project aims to work closely with existing educational leaders to enhance character development in students. After all, many schools in Alabama face major challenges and the LFC project needs to be mindful of these while supporting educational leaders in the state. For example, we are working on developing our own character education framework designed to complement existing structures and approaches for cultivating character in Alabama.
The knowledge that human flourishing needs to occur in good communities is well established, but this important message can sometimes be overshadowed in school contexts if there is an overly individualized approach to character education. We believe that educational leaders at principal and superintendent levels are perfectly situated to have a community-wide view in schools and, more importantly, to exert significant influence at this level. A key aim of the LFC project, therefore, will be to support leaders in understanding what leadership for character through community entails and to further develop capacity in this domain.
The LFC project does not view character education as a way to ‘correct’ children who are inherently problematic and needing remedy. Instead, the LFC approach is positively focused on affording students’ opportunity, in an appropriate community, for ethical growth and development. These are also key aims for the Center for the Study of Ethical Development.
Our approach to character development emphasizes pursuit of student flourishing as the overarching purpose of education. The realization of each students’ human potential is a holistic educational endeavor, with both moral and academic dimensions necessary for living a modern day ‘good life’. Teachers and educational leaders instinctively share this view that education ought to be aimed at human flourishing involving both academic and character development.
Children are born with capacity to acquire virtue, as integral to character, through practical experience. This requires conscious effort by those around them in addition to appropriate experiences and relationships, invariably involving exposure to good role models and exemplars (e.g. teachers, parents, friends etc.).
We believe that good character has intrinsic worth involving meaning, purpose, hard work, and striving for excellence in several important domains, such as intellectual, moral, civic, and performance virtues.
Our Leadership for Character Framework can be found here.
Community and Character
Of course, each community is different, and the Leadership for Character project aims to work closely with existing educational leaders to enhance character development in students. After all, many schools in Alabama face major challenges and the LFC project needs to be mindful of these while supporting educational leaders in the state. For example, we are working on developing our own character education framework designed to complement existing structures and approaches for cultivating character in Alabama.
The knowledge that human flourishing needs to occur in good communities is well established, but this important message can sometimes be overshadowed in school contexts if there is an overly individualized approach to character education. We believe that educational leaders at principal and superintendent levels are perfectly situated to have a community-wide view in schools and, more importantly, to exert significant influence at this level. A key aim of the LFC project, therefore, will be to support leaders in understanding what leadership for character through community entails and to further develop capacity in this domain.
The LFC project does not view character education as a way to ‘correct’ children who are inherently problematic and needing remedy. Instead, the LFC approach is positively focused on affording students’ opportunity, in an appropriate community, for ethical growth and development. These are also key aims for the Center for the Study of Ethical Development.