4 Foundational Building Blocks for Helping Students Become Good Humans

Dear Fellow Teachers,

I do my best every day as a mom and as a teacher to raise good citizens, but lately it doesn’t feel like it’s enough.  I wonder… could we, as teachers, unify our efforts?  If we teachers, on a grassroots level, committed to teaching character education embedded in our instruction, regardless of grade-level, regardless of content, we could, together, help the 54.1 million school children of the United States to be better stewards of the Earth, and to help take care of one another with more kindness.  What an impact that could have!

What I’ve started here is just the most basic template: 4 pillars that we can teach to all children.  These ideas can be taught in a million different ways, and this is why I want to share the information open-source.  If people have good books to recommend for teaching a pillar, please list it (along with the grade-levels you think the book is most appropriate for).  If people have lesson plans they already use and resources they already use for teaching these character traits, please link those.  Some of us will want to make up our own lessons, and some of us will want support in how to teach these things.  

Regardless of how in-depth you go with each pillar, and how you teach them, the important thing is that by the end of the school year, your students know these four traits, and that they’ve started their journey to becoming a better human.  Then, together, we will continue teaching these pillars again the following year and the year after that, going deeper as our students are able.

Imagine a country where we teachers took the reins of our students’ social emotional learning and we helped them to be better people - people who cared for the earth and for one another.  I believe this is what we need at this point in our country, and I am hopeful that, together as teachers, we can do it.

In solidarity,

Whitney Bowman

(M.A. Education 2001, Teacher since 2001, Mom since 2007)