My Work So Far

I've really enjoyed reading everyone's posts, both from DC and elsewhere! I wanted to give a basic little intro to where I work and what my organization does.

Well, it's been about two months since I started my fellowship at the Character Education Partnership (CEP), along with Farrell Harding '10 and Leif Johnson '10. We're located a few short blocks from the White House in downtown DC. CEP is a small education nonprofit that advocates for the character education movement. The name sounds descriptive enough to make the meaning self-evident, but I find that most people don't understand character education at first blush. "Is it about religion in our public schools?", a little voice asks the mind of the leftist. "Extreme political correctness?", whispers the mind of someone on the right. "Extremely useless because some kids can't even read and write?", chimes the mind of the data-driven reformer.

In fact, character ed is useful, vital, and neither religious nor leftist indoctrination. Character education simply means that teaching basic ethical values is at the heart of education. Respect, kindness, integrity, hard work..these are traits that are just as essential to the education of a child as the ability to read or do long division. The problem is that most schools have abrogated the responsibility to teach kids to be good people. Character ed doesn't mean an actual class on ethics and values-though some schools do incorporate them-but can simply be expressed in two words: high expectations.

A child doesn't have to be the brightest scholar to know that it's wrong to cheat, wrong to disrespect faculty, wrong to not give their best effort in class, wrong to bully. An aversion to these traits needs to be cultivated, and a proclivity for them needs to be actively dissuaded. Every child should graduate from elementary, middle, and high school with a strong academic foundation, and reforms toward that end are critically important. But over and above academics, schools need to stress character in all that they do so that students progress through adolescence and into adulthood with a strong ethical foundation. It's great when a school graduates students that are academically successful, but whether or not a student is bound for college or going straight into the workforce, they should at least know that basic values like integrity and respect serve you well in all that you do.

CEP basically tries to encourage schools to adopt character ed and actively stress important ethical values. In addition to raising awareness, we publish research and curricular resources, carry out professional development training, run a national awards certification program for schools with character ed, and hold a yearly conference.

That's the little character education treatise. With that introduction–a sort of macro view of what my fellowship is all about–I want to delve into day-to-day work activities as well as life in the city in later posts. Move from high-minded to the nitty-gritty, so to speak. To all of my fellow P55ers out there..best of luck with your work!

Cam Lloyd '09