Creating an Advisory Program Using Hollywood Film Clips to Promote Character Development

Abstract

Are we adequately addressing the emotional side of learning for our students? When the faculty members of Webb Bridge Middle School in Alpharetta, Georgia, seriously asked ourselves that question, we began a process that culminated in starting an program. Our initial answers to the question made evident the inadequacies of'our then current efforts to deal with the personal and concerns of our students and their development as persons of good character. Yes, we did have word of the week, which we thought addressed character education, but other than student agendas and posters, there really was no meaningful support. Yes, we loosely called our homeroom an advisory time, but we knew that this was not a valuable or meaningful period of time; it was too filled with paperwork and announcements to really connect with students. Yes, we did have a record of academic excellence, bul how were we addressing the issues of academic honesty and personal behavior? Yes, we did have organizational structures and processes that addressed building needs, but how were we addressing such matters as anger management or kindness? How were we as a middle school addressing overall developmental responsiveness and equity? Were we truly addressing the needs of all our young learners if we were celebrating our academic accomplishments, while some students could have been wandering our halls without an adult recognizing that personal dilemmas were consuming them? Were we really assisting our in this key period of character formation? Reaching way back As we opened up this important aspect of an education for honest consideration and delved into the model and the purposes of character education, we quickly realized that character development could not be viewed in isolation, as its own history stretches back to before biblical times. Within character or moral education, there has been an emphasis on the education of the whole person, dealing with the physical, moral, spiritual, and cultural aspects of human (Best, 2000). These considerations have been present throughout the history of American education. In the early 20th century, John Dewey defined character as the interpretation of habits and an important cornerstone in the development of character education. While character education has been evolving for centuries, more recent concerns for moral education appeared in the early 1960s. Not surprisingly, with the social and political upheaval of the 1960s, a resurgent interest in this age-old challenge arose in response to societal questioning of moral values and policies, numerous approaches to socializing our were proposed (Althof & Berkowitz, 2006). Best (2000) has traced the history of attempts in England to legislate the development of spiritual, moral, social, and cultural growth of students through a comprehensive national curriculum. He concluded: To improve performance across the academic curriculum, we need to protect and extend opportunities for children to engage the world emotionally, aesthetically, and morally, in the hope that they come to understand much better themselves, their fellow human beings, and that greater whole of which we are all part. The contemporary observations of Anfara (2006) point toward the realization that when especially designed programs are combined with other components of the middle school concept, student self-concept improves, dropout rates decrease, and school climate becomes more positive. With this in mind, it is not surprising that in her congressional testimony, Principal Aldredge of Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia opened by recognizing what Socrates, Kohlberg, Likona, and so many others have taught us throughout the years; that is, the importance of developing moral character in our youth (Aldredge, 2006). These observations draw on a very similar theme running through American education: Learning extends beyond the traditional classroom to the life experiences of learners. …