What Emily Farkas and Dr. Ashley Brandon are doing at Grand Canyon University’s Canyon Center for Character Education is nothing short of vital in these times.
Education leaders can “change the narrative” of today’s behavior among national leaders by modeling a more decent approach and avoiding future problems “if we help them see the value in each person and dignity in each person,” said Brandon, the center's assistant director, before its fourth Fostering Thriving Schools and Students Summit today and Saturday at GCU's Camelback Road and 27th Avenue complex.
“That is part of education, not only enhancing your own virtue but seeing that in others by uplifting their virtues. I think it mends the problems that could come out of the next few years.”
Adds Farkas, the center's program director: “It is all about promoting the common good. As individuals, we can do better, and collectively, we can accomplish so much in pursuit of the common good.”
The summit is the last of four in the series during the academic year that brought national experts on character education to GCU for presentations and workshops with K-12 administrators and teachers who engage in character education in their schools, or hope to.
“We are proud of the potential impact we will be able to make,” Farkas said. “That was the goal going in. How can we empower those coming to these summits to think more deeply and to understand the vast importance of this work?”
The summits, which have averaged more than 80 participants each, have been a big part of the impact the center has made as it nears the end of its initial Kern Family Foundation three-year grant of $2.27 million.
It also has done outreach in schools, led professional development seminars, embedded character education in more than 100 university courses and put together a vast online library of resources for asynchronous training on character education and much more.
They also took a trip to the Bronx and found one of the summit’s keynote speakers, Jolleen Wagner, who was pivotal in creating a comprehensive character education program at a charter school there.
The school identified its core values, appropriate to each grade level, and teachers and students all used language specific to those core values, Farkas said. In middle school morning meetings, they focused on a reflection of the day, and each classroom had a daily character education objective.
Wagner’s Friday morning keynote, “It Starts with You: Integrating Character Education Into School Cultures,” explores how leaders and educators can embed character education in everyday practices.
Saturday’s keynote is by Dr. John Lowry, “Building Character, Building Futures: Lessons from the Principal’s Office.” The director at Homewood (Alabama) City Schools will explore how to create and sustain a culture of character.
The final summit will go over action plans for schools, considering timelines and budgets, and implementation of some of the character education methods learned from experts.
Numerous other breakout sessions and subjects are on the program, available here.
Some who attended earlier summits already have reported some successes. One third-grade teacher created core values for her classroom and “created a song or a chant for the students so they all started off the day thinking about what is important in their classroom.”
Another wrote to Farkas and Brandon: “I’ve already added two character education portions to two days this week, showing my high school students YouTube videos on being aware of other people, what they may be going through and looking out for the underdog.”
Grand Canyon University senior writer Mike Kilen can be reached at mike.kilen@gcu.edu
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