Hi everyone. Welcome to Teaching Character And
Creating Positive Classrooms.
We're so excited that you joined us to talk about
how we can weave character into the very DNA of our classrooms and
schools, right alongside the absolutely critical academics that we teach.
There are two main ideas for this course.
One comes from James Baldwin and another from elephants.
James Baldwin has this incredible quote, Children have never been very good at
listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.
And this is the exact reason that any character work
hinges upon it being a shared journey between us and our students.
This became clear to me early in my career.
I was yelling.
I'm not really proud of this.
But I was yelling at a seventh grader to stop yelling at another kid.
Let me say that again.
I was yelling at a seventh grader to stop yelling at another kid.
And as only middle school kids can do, in the moment, the seventh grader turns to me
and says Mr. Levin, you do realize that you're yelling at me to stop yelling.
Kids take this stuff seriously, they wanna know that the adults
are working on the same thing that we're asking them to do.
And in that moment, that young man and I, we shared a laugh, and
then, more importantly, we shared a commitment to both yelling less.
And, see, it's that shared journey upon which all of this work hinges.
If we're asking kids to work hard, they've got to see us, as teachers, working hard.
If we're asking them to turn in work on time,
they've got to see us trying to turn back work on time.
If we're asking them to show up at school every day,
they've got to see us showing up every day.
They want to know that it is a shared journey.