CharacterStrong Leadership Curriculum - ASB

The CharacterStrong Leadership Curriculum has been created for three primary reasons:

1) To focus on the question that is not getting asked: What did you do for others today?

A speaker out of California once remarked that he had asked an audience of 6,000 at a student leadership conference in California, “How many of you have had a parent or guardian in the last month ask you the question, ‘What did you do for others today?’” Zero students raised their hands. A month later the same speaker came to Washington State and asked approximately 1,500 students at a conference the same question and only two raised their hands. We need to ask this question daily to our youth and to ourselves!

2) To teach strong leadership and character skills to better prepare our students for life in and out of school.

In 2014 Andrew Sokatch gave a TED Talk on the importance of teaching character in education. He makes the statement that if we only teach traditional academics to our kids, we are only providing them with half of what they need to be successful. Character Lab Research Director Andrew Sokatch has a sobering yet attainable message regarding the education of today’s youth. While test scores and the reading, writing, math, science behind them are important, we are not properly and wholly educating our children if we are not also teaching character. Sokatch argues that character can and should be taught in schools, noting that grit, persistence, self-control, courage, and humor are all critical life skills for successful employment, marriages, and citizenship. https://youtu.be/sxHGSTV3LF0

3) To give teachers the opportunity to connect with their students in a positive way and form a positive relationship through quality conversations and lessons.

Let’s face it, in the traditional classroom setting it is sometimes hard to form connections and relationships with your kids through meaningful conversations about things they are dealing with at school and in their daily lives. The strength of this curriculum should be in the content material, which has been tested over the past 15 years and has been in hundreds, if not thousands, of classrooms in some fashion throughout the country. You will notice in the curriculum breakdown that once the CharacterDare challenges begin, teachers will have the opportunity to open up conversations and be a mentor for the students they serve.