I definitely feel that building character in our students is a contributing factor in helping them become more well-rounded, self-sufficient individuals. Teaching students how to fail or struggle or flounder or feel overwhelmed without shutting down is in my mind essential to helping them achieve a "happy, meaningful, productive life", sending them out into the world thinking that they are near perfect because they have never been challenged is setting them up to be crushed by the harsh reality of the world which is full of difficulties. In my opinion, that is a pretty cruel.
In addition to the important traits of character listed in the article "What if the Secret to Success is Failure?" I have a few aspects that I think are especially worth adding to a curriculum to help prepare 21st century students to face the world and find success:
- Navigating and useful employment of existing and emerging technologies
- The importance of organization and time management systems that work for them
- Adaptability and resilience in new environments both physical, and mental
- How to formulate hypotheses and ask their own questions
One of my biggest concerns about making time to teach aspects of strong moral and performance characters is: How can we effectively make strides towards building character without blunting academic rigor in our classrooms? And like so many other questions like this in teaching, I think the answer is that we will struggle everyday to maintain a balance between the two. Throughout our teaching we will need to look for new ways to teach that engage our students without tipping the scales too far in one direction or the other. The idea of "dual purpose instruction" is one way of doing this which shows me that it is achievable and helps me to believe that we can each find a way to implement these new ideas into the classroom without sacrificing progress in our content areas or the values in traditional curricula.
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