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Character
Education Lesson Plans
by
Lynn Marks, text book contributorCharacter
education lesson plans are among the most important lesson plans that teachers
use. A teacher that has good lesson plans for character education, and follows
them, wields powerful tools. These tools have the potential to change the atmosphere
of a school. They can be instrumental in making a school safer. They can bring
peace and harmony to a classroom. They can unite a student body and overcome intolerance.
Many
benefits flow from good character education lesson plans, not the least of which
is the injection into society of young men and women of principle. The lesson
plan possesses no magical power in itself, of course. The teacher must bring to
it a passion and purpose that will lift it from the prosaic to the poetic. Only
then will it impact students for a lifetime. |
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Character
education lesson plans are not all created equal, of course, which is why
we qualify the term with the word good. A good lesson plan for character education
will have a crystal clear definition of the word character or of the specific
character trait being taught. This definition will be age-appropriate, and bolstered
by the teacher's in-depth study of the term. The teacher will own the material,
having mastered it before teaching.
Character
education lesson plans begin with a purpose. They have a goal. The goal is
to see character in action in the students, not simply resident in their heads.
It is akin to students studying French. The goal there is that they be able to
buy bread in a small town in France, not just ask for bread on a French test.
If
respect is the goal, the lesson plan takes into account how respectful the students
currently are. It may incorporate a pre-test to judge what students already know
about respect. It will have various ways to convey the concept of respect so that
each student's learning style will be met. It will be applied to students' lives
in realistic manner. It will be woven into other parts of the curriculum. Finally,
the meat of the lesson will be repeated. This last is vital, but often omitted.
The key to learning anything is repetition. I repeat. The key to learning anything
is repetition. We must repeat character education lessons if we want students
to learn character. The effort that goes into every good character education lesson
plan is effort well spent. | |
