They say they already are doing comprehensive character education, a recent School Board survey showed. That includes McDade Classical School, where 15 flags, each blazoned with one of 15 values, hang from the hall ceiling. A different student chooses and recites it over the public address system each day, and Principal Eleanor Addison then elaborates on it. In each classroom sits a laminated list of the school's 15 values. At least one is emphasized every month.
Students vote each month on which student in their class best epitomizes that month's value.
And yet, during a visit last week, not one student in a McDade sixth-grade class could name all 15 values. Only three students volunteered to try to name 10 of them. Turning to a dictionary with four definitions did not clear up the matter. You may not be able to name all 15, but as long as you can carry them out, that's the most important thing. Advancing beyond packaged lessons, math teacher Yolanda Jones now incorporates values into her daily teaching.