teens skip school every day because of bullying in every community there is often bullying and negative behavior among scenes character counts as a national initiative that promotes and fosters positive change in the school environment to better improve results in academic social emotional and character development domains there are six pillars of character trust trustworthiness respect responsibility fairness caring and citizenship peters township took on the initiative of character counts in our school district twenty years ago this year a similar effort to promote a positive and friendly atmosphere in our community hooters township also took on rachel's challenge rachel's challenge as  program to encourage kindness to create a chain reaction in our school and help to make the world a better place peter sound of character counts works towards the same cause by recognising individuals who have shown kindness compassion and good sportsmanship by awarding the them character counts recognition awards in peter's sports there is a practive approach on good sportsmanship coaches and student athletes are told to be the correct ways in which they should act to show kindness to their teammates and other teams whether on the field or in the hallways character counts takes effect by bringing increased attention to characters sportsmanship kindness and compassion in students well we are here today w oh and he was actually the person who brought character counts to peter's township he is also the executive director at the south wales bible chapel and he also is working with the military devout ministry development there th conference a comprehensive approach to character education and after earning my doctorate degree that became publicised in the school district newsletter and one of the p t a members asked me about it asked me to actually speak at a regional conference in the area at that conference there were a number of other peter's township residents there and captured their interest and they asked would i be wanting to share this vision of promoting character throughout our community at a  character counts help prevent bullying in schools that's a great question the idea behind character education in general is that you want to transfer me to transform the school culture so in a case like that when we give attention to character traits and values like kindness and being respectful and being compassionate and caring we want that to be the overriding atmosphere in a particular school school district or community so in a sense it becomes a valued currency as opposed to only things like academic achievement and athletic achievement but culturally things like kindness are highly valued so speaking of like kind of  i know that all like ties into rachel's challenge so like how how is like greatest challenge and counseling how does it all connect together character counts is really a network of community groups the school district is the centerpiece of course and  at the same time one of the things that makes peter stothard character counts unique is the networking of various community groups so what what happened with rachel's challenge is with the foundation of character cause being here in the community for so long one of our school administrators had heard about rachel's challenge and attended a program and came back inspired to do something here when she came back this is assistant superintendent dr murphy and she came back she knew right where to go as she  began to see if she can enlist some support for getting rachel's challenge to come here so there was already an established network through character collets of course the school district did much to support it and found a lot of ready partners in the community to help go along with it so rachel's challenge and character counts both really focus on improvement of the individual to make the community a better place so why why can improving someone's individual self really benefit the community in a positive way that's a big question you know being a part of a community requires a responsibility to contribute positively at least that's a that's an idea that i share i think we found that many people share that same type of philosophy so as we began to share the vision of working together to promote the character to help all of us to be able to contribute positively to help our community grow in positive ways and particularly be great models for youth  we found that that whole message of vision fell on fertile ground and many people responded to that so the idea behind character counts is you know parents play the primary role in character development of their children schools play an important but secondary and unavoidable role as well so it makes sense that with other community groups working in partnership we have the best chance to promote a positive atmosphere in our community help people to develop well and work together well so in  doing that we integrated in a comprehensive way would like to see that permeate the atmosphere in our schools in our homes in our youth sports through our inner scholastic sports programs our business community and character seen any big impact it made on the community well it's one of those things where it's one of those things that i kind of refer to as everything that matters is not so easily measured yeah you know it's so great that the school district just named number one in the state where academic achievement with the fans is they say that's something that's pretty concrete we could easily measure that how do you measure the kind of success that a community character initiative could have for me i was always encouraged as being a part of this initiative in this community for so long to see why and when students respond by displaying kindness and how they would respond to and ask for a service project when you'd see a teacher go the extra mile to help a student yeah when you see parents and teachers working together and collaborating to just try to make the situation a little bit better those are the kind of things that inspire me and i would say we can look at look at some data there's our schools  you know reflect greatly on the community with respect to how success for students are our community has a lot of accolades crime is low there is a lot of civic activity and community service activity going on so when you at those things as masers i don't know what to what you can attribute to character counts but certainly is integrated to a part of the culture of the community so how is it decided whether a student deserves a character counts award a character first character council ward started in two thousand when miss america actually came to do a program here and out of her platform as being miss america was anti bowling she was a teacher from hawaii and so we invited her here she came here and there was a big program it was a great celebration and she she spoke there and since her cause was anti bulling we made that part of the program so there was some students who were just being annoyed and complimented for just standing up against bullying so we decided let's call some attention to those benevolent actions selfless actions and always remember there was that one young lady who had donated locks of hair to locks of love it just stands out in my mind is from the early program but in terms of the the whole idea  of addressing bowling that's something that is integrated throughout you know all the schools and throughout all the school programs as well so speaking of like the award can parents and teachers also parents people who work in the community are just part of the community and they can get nominated just by being observed or having something that they do there reflects well on promoting respect responsibility and honesty throughout our if you like how did you initially become familiar with character their counterparts i was in the graduate school classroom of california university and we had a speaker come and spoke about the idea of character education in general and i was inspired from there that person went on to be a mentor for me when i went to the university of pittsburgh and finished started by doctoral program there needed a topic for my dissertation and i decided to do it on a earlier people wanted to be involved in that and just responded really well so i didn't so much as create it but shared a vision and people responded to it and so many people have contributed and still to this day yeah and to sustain yeah are there any other programs in character counts like greatest challenge like is there any more programs like that with the idea of character education is not a program now but yet there are many programs or initiatives or activities or efforts everything from  teacher's lesson in a classroom to approach that i think it's on the sports for anything that you could do to help to infuse and promote character but yes there are many you referred in your introduction to the six pillars of edge of character education that's from the josephson institute for character education that's the national character counts what we do here is we don't necessarily use that curriculum at all but i'm sure it's been used somewhere somehow over the course of the twenty years that would just be one example of a program prescribe curriculum that can be integrated into a classroom so they approach we've taken here is sort of home grown so as we revised curriculum over the years there's an intentional effort to integrate  character themes throughout that that curriculum so just being intentional and having it as a mindset so make it a comprehensive approach to be infused into everything we do in the life of the school so how does character education help encourage good develop sportsmanship and promote sportsmanship starts with with the school principals the athletic director the coaches the team captains to take the approach to whatever the sport is or or activity that could be any activity to do to perform to approach it in the honorable way to give attention to always giving your best effort what does it mean to be a good sport how do you how can you play in a way that honors your opponent as well as the game by giving your best effort so you start to label those things and promote those types of things over and above just when me yeah so we're not going to be taking a short welcome back to the edge so why did you feel the need for character counts in our community and why i think there is a need for people to work together what a good character in every community there's always work to do in that area for sure from an individual standpoint an be make a good contribution to your school your community and so for me i always remember that time is the time when i was in graduate school and i'll go back to the meeting we had were there was a person speaking on that topic and how that just resonated with me and so for me that serves as a benchmark of a time that i responded to something that i had heard and learned but i believe like that was in me and many other educators and people all the time so the idea of character education is really nothing new it just puts a framework to it and what we're able to do here and peters is find a way to work together and personalize it in a way that's meaningful for us  but it definitely was a point where it added meaning to my work as a teacher and a coach and a principal and i was glad to be able to participate with others throughout the rest of my career so how has character conflict started a trend for other schools in this area where we one of the first schools to rein in our area like other schools that had it first the idea of character education again is a been around for a long time but it saw a resurgence nationally in the hundred ninety s and in this area in particular the gentleman to whom i referred is there was dr henry huffman he was an administrator in the mall lebanon school district during that time and they had some great efforts in that district during that time period he had since retired and gone on to teach at a local university and i'm not sure what lebanon has done over the years in character education but in terms of this area i could say that as of two thousand  when the our school district was recognized as a national school or elementary was recognized as a national school character it was the only one in pennsylvania and one of only seventeen nationally and then in two thousand how exactly are the students recognized it's really nice it's kind simple a lot of times people don't like to go to a recognition programs that take a long time so what we do is we send an invitation to the family of family members of the earth invited as well and most recently they've been held at the peterson little school but they've been held at various other locations throughout our community over the years usually film for the cable t v show so other people can see it and they receive a certificate and the person who nominates the person can actually go on to the stage and then present the certificate and someone can see one of the representatives from character council will read about what the purpose of the award in the why they were nominated so it's just a nice simple little ceremony and it really is meant to call attention as much to the values that are being promoted and the acts that are made and  done as the person so it's a way to for the community civil break acts of kindness and character and community so how does the approach to character education vary from maybe the high school to the middle school to the elementary school like how is it different so from a from an approach standpoint you're it's more of an in call cation type of a model just much like parents or the parents they're you know starting to label behaviors as of that that's kind that's unkind reinforcing what parents are or ought to be teaching at home right so as the kids get a little bit older and seek independence and gain independence they sometimes will have opportunities to do things independently and sometimes also make mistakes and learn from those mistakes as well but students get more involved and ask more questions as they get older so if the in middle school that's a great upper elementary and middle schools have great time because as teachers promote the ideas of character to bring them to life through literature history events are happening currently in society or full of opportunities for conversations about those things you find that students respond by asking a lot of questions taking positions being able to have great debates and conversations about those types of things and actually initiate where you get to the high school students like yourselves initiating responses to things that happen saying we should do something about something we don't like how this is called can we make it better so that's part of the ways that students of contributed which is really encouraging when you see that so when you ask how is it help the community and how do you know it's successful really probably the best answer that as you know is successful when you see young people responding in a way that really makes you proud and even challenges us as adults to to responsibilities one of the core values so we take it upon ourselves as teachers and students as school administrators as parents to do our part as a member of that community so when any of one of those things break down we're less than what we could be so from a responsibility standpoint we approach them from a developmental step will be as much less of our preschoolers than we do from our  high schoolers their level of independence is much greater so we want to do that in a way that's proportionate to the preparation right so but responsibility is key the more independence the students have the more responsibility they have to demonstrate so it's one of our core values for important reason so how does character  encourage kids or students to become more to be if they become more responsible and kind you know how they how does it encourage them so there's not a curriculum that teaches you how to be responsible it's more like you know that's life you know parents again play the primary role there i think that students when they're at home they hear a lot about you need to be responsible you clean your room you do those things i just part of being a person right in school it's no different so as students are given homework responsibilities they're expected to understand how to prepare be on time practice even when you don't feel like practicing you know all of those types of things really require effort initiative and energy really to benefit not only yourself but the benefit the team the school a large school can't function of people very  you know how in the home gets a little bit chaotic as well how does our character education here differ from me from the national curriculum so ours is not based upon any national curriculum refer back to the josephson institute character counts that is a national program you can buy into that you can use that prescriptively we really haven't bought into much that's on  e published basis so we looked at making our approach comprehensive we wanted to be part of every aspect of life in our schools so from school board policies to  curriculum to school handbooks to teachers the teachers developing the lessons that help to promote and challenge students on the steams it's just much more dynamic and we're danica in that sense as prescriptive so it's more of a an initiative that's just ongoing that we would want everyone to approach it with a mindset of helping young people to develop good join and be a part of character counts there are three strategies at the beginning that make for an effective and comprehensive approach to character education so that leadership component is really important the involvement of all stakeholders including students and developing an effective communications plan so we set up a routine of meeting monthly so the community group representatives come together monthly that's been going on for almost twenty years now and  e recognition award just part of that communication it's a way to engage the community to be a part of it school newsletters chamber of commerce the tall ship console all adopted resolutions over time  renewing their support of character education in our community character talents in particular so you know looking at using a varied approach to communication has been a point and really becoming a part of the community so every year know community wide programs and things like to keep the name out there so you're talking about like people come in every year and meet up for character counts every month every month and i know those like representatives of it are the only teacher parents so that effort to do something positive to promote good character is being a part of it but so those monthly meetings are attended by representatives chamber the police department library parents at large p administrators teachers i mean a lot of people that come in over over years the it's really grown most recently there's a there's twenty five thirty people there now christian lives and that is one of the people who leads it now he of the main facilitators have meetings and they've done a great job recently of many community people involved are very they have some lunch and share what's going on in the community and in various schools so it's been a successful way the community together and unfortunately we're almost out of time so in conclusion character counts is a program that helps to create a more positive atmosphere and schools nationwide character count has become a big part of peter's townships approach to kindness compassion and good sportsmanship throughout the community for the past twenty years the initiative has encouraged students to better focus on their character by looking out for each other being better sports and by selling a product by setting a prime example of ideal behavior students here show a good example and the six pillars of character trustworthiness respect responsibility fairness caring and citizenship oversea of a character counts recognition award over the past twenty years and pete in character counts numerous awards have been given by rewarding students of example larry behavior this encourages other students to strive to set a good example in a similar way whether they're on the field or in the classroom character counts program brings increased attention on positive behavior by recognizing in promoting improvement in the different pillars of character when each of us focus on or in their visual character it can improve our community as a whole