Title: Character first
First published: 1993
Description: Courage. Integrity. Leadership. Curiosity. Concern. These values are sadly missing from today's schools. Joe Gauld knew this too well as a teacher, coach, and administrator at secondary schools that were supposed to be among the best in the country. He saw a system preoccupied with students' ability and academic achievement, and blind to their character. Gauld decided to do something about it - start his own school. For more than twenty-seven years since that decision, Hyde School has taught teenagers how to learn, has affirmed how CHARACTER develops, and has demonstrated how the school and family can join together as a powerful team. Gauld pioneered the family-student partnership, which has become the hallmark of Hyde School. Hyde parents participate in retreats and workshops and take part in the school's Family Learning Center programs, where they explore their own behavior, values, goals, and relationships. Gauld's integration of fundamental values into CHARACTER-based education helps each student fulfill his or her own unique potential. Young people respond enthusiastically when they're rewarded for effort, not results - and they begin to work harder. Character First isn't a book of detached educational theory. Instead, the author's recollections and the personal accounts of students, parents, and teachers clearly show what creates the Hyde School difference. The stories in this book tell of struggles with drugs and alcohol, aimlessness, cheating, and peer pressure, and the role Hyde and sometimes Gauld himself have played in helping young people deal with and overcome their problems. We find American schools at the end of the twentieth century without a guiding philosophy or unified sense of purpose, but there is a way to change that. Character First tells how.
Subjects: Hyde School (Bath, Me.), Bath (Me.), Hyde School