Character Education: Developing Good Citizens - Part 2 (Acceptance)

broncofan99 (64)in #steemiteducation • 6 years ago (edited)

In my previous character education post, I outlined some ways to foster character education at a school-wide level. Now, I would like to start discussing some of the more specific traits and present some possible ways to tackle each one. By no means are these ideas the best or only way to teach character education in your class. There is a multitude of ideas and methods to engage children in these studies. These are just some of the ideas that have worked for me and things that I have had some success with. The way that we teach character education is going to depend on the age group of the kids. Activities may differ and the complexity may differ but you will always be dealing the same core concepts.

I personally like to use a few different entry points when incorporating character education into my classroom studies. My first go to is literature. There are so many wonderful books that help highlight different character traits. I also like to use music, drama and art to help reinforce these ideas. These are great avenues for kids to both learn the ides and to express their feelings. Many character traits will actually overlap in the core values of the traits themselves. For example, Empathy is a trait that requires the demonstration of various other traits as well. I will try to keep the information I post as specific to the trait we are discussing but bare in mind that there is always the possibility as teachers to put a different twist on a resource, That is the nature of our jobs. In this post, I would like to focus on the idea of acceptance.

Acceptance:

To accept someone is to show respect for and validation of who they are, what they do, and for the life and path they chose.
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I reach out to include others. I accept others for who they are. I am gentle with myself and others when mistakes are made.
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This definition should also include acceptance of people for their race, religion culture and even the way they look as well as people learning to accept themselves for who they are. The unfortunate reality is that society often has a difficult time accepting those things/people that are different. Kids are no different in this respect and can at times be cruel to each other over these differences. The goals of these lessons in our class are:

To have more acceptance of appearance, culture and the things people like or do
To foster more inclusion on the schoolyard during play time and in games
Create a reduction in the number of bullying behaviours such as laughing and making fun of others.

If kids can learn and start exhibiting these behaviours at a young age then it is going to create a society of adults who are more accepting of each other. Imagine a world where people looked first to understand each other and accept differences rather than judge and hurt one another.

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A book that I have used in my classroom on many occasions is “Don’t Laugh At Me”. This is a Reading Rainbow picture book that highlights all the little flaws of each of the characters and talks about them as the things that people choose to point out and laugh at them about. Each character talks about how they are the person with a particular flaw and asks not to be laughed at. The illustrations really do a great job of showing the feelings felt by these characters as they go through their stories. The book continues by outlining that we all have our little differences and that at the core we are all humans and the same.

I use this story as a read aloud and we have some wonderful discussions about the ideas and characters in the book. Students are asked to use the reading strategy of making connections while at the same time expressing the feelings that are being demonstrated in the story. Students are able to talk about times when they were made fun of and how that felt as well as go through the difficult process of thinking of times when they might have been to one making fun of others. It can be an eye-opening discussion. We also talk about how we could do a better job of accepting others and including them and how we might possibly act the next time we find ourselves in a similar situation.

We take the ideas that we learn from this story and apply them to ourselves and it becomes a writing activity where the kids are writing about something that makes them different. They highlight the flaw that makes them feel different and express how it makes them feel when they are made fun of. All of these pages are accompanied by an illustration created by the student. When finished the pages are all compiled into our own class book. Students are then able to read each other's entries and we even take the book at times to other classes and share.

The best part about this story is that it is also a song. We are able to listen to the song and then sing it together. On several occasions, I have had my class go and sing the song for other classes and even sing it at character assemblies.

Once we are finished working with “Don’t Laugh At Me” we then take a closer look at accepting ourselves for our flaws and for the things that are great about us. We read a story called “The Best Part Of ME”. in this story kids rejoice about the good things about themselves. The book mostly focuses on body parts and self-image but we expand that to students likes or hobbies and anything that makes them feel good about themselves. It forces students to take a serious look at themselves and see that there are great things about each and every one of us, even though we might be different. The same as with the first book students create a book all about the things they think are the best part of themselves. This becomes a celebration of acceptance for both ourselves and others.

In conclusion, taking the time to encourage kids to look closely at the way they feel about themselves and others can be a gateway to fostering acceptance. Being able to recognize how it feels to be excluded or to be made fun of for our differences is something that we can all resonate with. At some point in life, we have all been on the receiving end of hurtful words or actions. Being able to connect with those feelings will help kids to better understand how others feel and hopefully make positive choices when confronted with situations where they are seeing those differences in others.There are many other books and activities that you can use in your class. The first step is choosing to make character education a priority. Once you have taken that step then you are already on the right track and your students will be better for it.

Don't Laugh at me song with images from the book

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Click here for more books that help deal with the topic of acceptance.

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