Running head: FAILING TO TEACH CHARACTER IS NOT AN OPTION 1

Failing to Teach Character:

Not an Option

Jeremy Mitchell

Oakland University
FAILING TO TEACH CHARACTER IS NOT AN OPTION 2

Abstract

Alan M. Blankstein’s 2013 ​Failure is Not an Option​ outlines six principles that advance

student achievement in highly effective schools. One would assume that in this day and age of

high stakes testing and accountability, schools would only settle on academic goals. However

important academic success is: “We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence

plus character - that is the goal true education” - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blankstein’s

principles will be applied to a new character education movement that hopes to be in every

American school within the next 20 years. It is called The Positivity Project, and it is founded in

positive psychology, the study of what goes right in the human psyche. Failing to teach

character to our students is simply not an option.

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Introduction

Indian Hill is a wonderful K-5 elementary school of just over 500 students situated in

Grand Blanc, Michigan. While there are day to day challenges, for the most part the school has

thrived for a long time due to a supporting community, active families, devoted staff, and a

mostly stable economic base. Pushing the needle farther, whether it is academically or socially,

with our students brings to mind Jim Collin’s now classic leadership book ​Good to Great​.

Things are typically good, but we are in a constant quest to be great. Over the course of the last

year, our staff has serendipitously stumbled on the beginnings of what we think will be a large

social movement in character education for our students. In just a year, our staff has become

more connected socially and empathetically than ever before and much of it can be attributed to

our forefront work in being leaders of this movement: The Positivity Project.

Like schools across the country ours has had a school culture goal as part of their

improvement planning process for years. Also, like most, ours centered around the support and

promotion of prosocial behaviors. As we know, all things can become stale, whether a mission

statement at the front of the school or even a motto or mascot. The charge of leadership is to

inspire and serve and this movement and the strategy its founders employ to spread its message

are truly inspiring. A fire has been lit in the Indian Hill staff, students, and families. Our school

and community stakeholders have qualitatively made it very clear that at the waning end of an

era of high stakes testing and quantitative analysis, they are very excited and interested for the

pendulum to swing back to developing the whole child and in particular their character. We

believe that if we put this first, then the work we do academically will be catapulted and we will
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see positive results from putting the work of culture and character first. The ultimate goal will be

to fail forward in this process and help spread that fire to all sister schools in the district and

beyond.

For this particular assignment, the journey of Indian Hill and The Positivity Project will

be analyzed through the lens of Alan M. Blankstein’s book ​Failure is Not an Option ​and in

particular his “six principles that advance student achievement in highly effective schools.”

Analysis through this lens serves to take stock and reflect where things have gone right, but more

importantly where opportunity still exists.

Principle 1: Common Mission, Vision, Values, and Goals

Having everyone on the same proverbial page or bus is essential to the success of any

initiative. The unifying rally for Indian Hill in everything we do this year was taken from The

Positivity Project’s motto “other people matter”. The quote is attributed to the late positive

psychology co-founder, Dr. Chris Peterson from the University of Michigan. Supposedly Dr.

Peterson claimed before every talk about positive psychology, the study of what goes right in the

human spirit, that you could sum the field up in three words, “other people matter” (M. Erwin,

personal communication, July 29, 2016). He said that anything we can do to build better

relationships with other people will ultimately lead to increased life satisfaction both for

ourselves and those interacting with us. Thus, the mission of The Positivity Project is “to help

America’s youth build stronger relationships by recognizing the character strengths in

themselves and others.” At an even broader level the vision of the project is to leverage those

strengths in our students and ourselves “to develop leaders and citizens who will strengthen our
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communities and country by internalizing the belief that ‘Other People Matter”

(www.posproject.org)

Deeper goals for the project are to have students, their teachers, and their families

unpacking and discussing the 24 character strengths of positive psychology on a consistent basis.

Schools that partner with the project follow a calendar where a character strength is focused on

every one to two weeks. This is not a program as much as it is a movement. Teachers have the

autonomy to loosely follow daily activities that were created by teachers from the first pilot

school in Syracuse, NY or to create their own small lessons centered around understanding the

character strength. For example, a recent character strength at our school was perseverance.

One day students watched a short video about a gymnast who had a leg amputated due to cancer.

They then discussed as a class all of the ways the gymnast persevered as well as a time that they

have seen people exhibit perseverance. Another day students will read a short book or passage

and other days they will reflect in writing. Either way, there is a consistent analysis of the

character strengths in themselves and others throughout the year.

One school district is committed to the work of having adults build relationships with

students, but also with other adults. This can be a common trap or lip service that does not

match the reality on the ground however. Blankstein describes culture as “the way things are

done around here” (Blankstein, 2013, p. 81). This happens to be the new norm, but the question

is how long will it last for and will the motivation and fire be kept up. How do we know it is

successful? How do you truly measure the impact and perception of something like this? The

first school in Syracuse has a year's worth of data that the Positivity Project had two Ph.D’s

collect opinion data on, but the next 33 schools that Indian Hill is a part of are too new to in the
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process to see results. Even then, we are not talking about academic goals and results directly

through this movement, we are addressing character and relationships in a positive way, which

Blankstein cites as paramount foundations of success: “begin with your core”, “create

organizational meaning”, “maintain consistency and clarity of purpose”, “confront the data and

your fears”, and “build sustainable relationships” (Blankstein, 2013, pp. 33-40).

Principle 2: Ensuring Achievement for All Students: Systems for Prevention and

Intervention

This principle is tied directly to the first principle, but it directly addresses whether or not

members of your organization actually believe in all of your grand ideas and plans and then does

rubber meet the road in implementing specific actions to truly ensure that “all students” succeed

(Blankstein, 2013). Blankstein spends a good portion outlining that schools who have specific

practices for identifying students who are struggling and then spend even more time planning

ways to engage those students and help them find success, exhibit the idea that everyone matters

and no one gets left behind.

This is perhaps one of the project’s greatest strengths, but also possibly greatest

deficiencies all at once. It’s strength lies literally in the 24 character strengths. The notion that

all of us have these 24 strengths present in ourselves and that everyone else does too is very

powerful. Spending time exploring these is not only fun and engaging since all of us love to

learn more about ourselves and others, but also beneficial because it allows us to self-rate our

strengths and weaknesses in the realm of our character. The deficiency is that there is not an

easy or even possible way of objectively evaluating achievement. A “Values in Action” survey

exists but is only valid down to age 10, thus eliminating any measure of our younger students.
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Also, the survey is not meant to determine success, as there is no perfect combination of

character strengths, they are each important in their own regard and in different circumstances.

Once more however, leadership and establishing a culture of trust and collaboration is key to the

success of any school and this partnership has made our staff tighter and helped our staff and

students have a common vocabulary to connect.

Dialogue centered around empathy and care has changed dramatically in our short

journey with the project. The “other people matter” mindset aligns perfectly with Blankstein’s

“community circle of caring” which lists four basic needs that young people “attempt to meet in

either a prosocial or antisocial manner: contribution, connection, self-control, and competence”

(Blankstein, 2013, p. 125). The notion that young people, or any of us for that matter innately

need to belong to a community, whether good or bad is not new or profound. This best part of

this movement is its inclusivity and the ability to highlight the strengths of everyone. While

schools attempt to provide extracurricular activities as avenues for students to find success or

value beyond just academics, there are still kids who will be left out. The ones that fall through

the cracks are our greatest concern and this becomes an avenue for them to see and explore their

strengths, but more importantly step outside of themselves and begin recognizing the strengths of

others.

Principle 3: Collaborative Teaming Focused on Teaching and Learning

A collaborative school culture is the pinnacle of teamwork. Words like individual and

balkanized are used by Blankstein (2013) as the antithesis to a collaborative culture where staff

members are committed to the same mission and values. Blankstein describes “what good looks

like” with regard to collaborative teams that include things like: teachers understanding the
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responsibility to work together, having trust and respect for the ideas and styles of others, using

data and depersonalizing decisions, sharing leadership and accountability, democratic meetings

with protocols and agendas, and having a clear purpose and goals (Blankstein, 2013, pp.

150-151).

This initiative started out as a way to help grow and develop the character of our students,

but one of the best unintended consequences of the project has been how close and tight-knit the

staff has become. The school's leadership team was charged with introducing the project to the

rest of the Indian Hill staff and they creatively decided to have them conduct an all-day

professional development scavenger hunt that sent them out into the community to community

organizations to learn about the 24 character strengths. The level of planning, organization, and

logistics energy that was put into setting up the event was phenomenal and the staff loved it.

They went out in small groups and the feedback for how much they got to know about each other

in their groups, but also the community members they engaged with, was extremely positive.

For example, one of the sites was at a retirement facility where they chatted with community

members in the sunset phase of life about their perspective. One of the residents was a holocaust

survivor and one was a prisoner of war. Both had such deep and impactful things to say and the

staff said they will remember it forever. On one group's way out of the retirement facility, they

happened to pass a resident who pulled up in a red convertible with her friend wearing red

lipstick who proceeded to tell them to live everyday to the fullest. Wise words all around. The

best part of the whole day was that there were social media check-ins and posts that were

required at each stop, so their experiences were shared with the surrounding community and

beyond. This creativity by the leadership team has bled over into the classrooms and teachers
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have started crafting projects and lessons in the same vein, that many seemed reticent to try in

the past.

Principle 4: Data-Based Decision Making for Continuous Improvement

Data can be very intimidating to people. If data being collected is a good representation

of success toward a goal, and the data points to poor or less than desired results, people can

become defensive, particularly when they’ve put much time and energy into the goal. Blankstein

opens this chapter appropriately with the point that “even in the ‘hard’ area of data, it is the ‘soft’

skills that determine its successful use” (Blankstein, 2013, p. 163). This again threads back to

leadership and cultural trust. If you trust someone, then you are not fearful of their criticism.

You will accept their probing questions, coaching, and even possible criticism.

Because this partnership is so new, making decisions based upon data is currently a point

of weakness. Only one school has completed the first full year as the very first pilot school.

While our school leadership team has been involved with the founders for close to a year now,

the implementation in the school has only been for one semester at Indian Hill. The project is

collecting survey feedback from staff, students and parents three times a year, and a part of our

own school satisfaction survey tracks school culture satisfaction, but the limitation is that it is too

early to tell whether it is quantitatively being effective. Survey data is not the only metric to

consider however. So far, there has been an outpouring of support from families and community

members. Another key indicator for success is the fact that the movement has gained attention

locally and nationally. Next school year, every Grand Blanc elementary school, both middle

schools and the high school will all partner with The Project and teach the 24 character strengths.

Additionally, the school was profiled by two local news stations, the local paper, and a
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mini-documentary was made about the school's leadership as one of the first in Michigan to be a

part of the movement.

One very new data source that our school has become very interested in is social media

post engagement. The Positivity Project is very active online, particularly Facebook, and the

founder has seen dramatic growth in community building in his first nonprofit, Team Red,

White, and Blue, which is a veterans service organization that promotes positive lifestyle choices

by connecting veterans and civilians through physical activity and social events. As part of our

journey with The Positivity Project, Indian Hill has created a Facebook page and found that it is

a phenomenal way to engage with the parents of our students and even our greater community.

The interesting data byproduct has been that Facebook group pages track post engagement data

from a marketer’s perspective. Not only are likes, comments, and shares tracked, but also post

views. Parents are engaging in positive posts themselves and tagging the school’s account and

the “other people matter” hashtag. The best part is that the online world bleeds over into the

physical world and this experience has become a shared connection for our families to talk about

their school. The hope will now be that this data can be correlated somehow to student academic

achievement. The jury is still out, but hopes are high.

Principle 5: Gaining Active Engagement from Family and Community

If data to prove the efficacy and worth of the partnership is the greatest deficiency, then

family and community engagement are its greatest strength. This is billed as “not another

program”, but rather a social movement that is distributed solely through word of mouth,

particularly on social media, and even more in particular, Facebook. As mentioned, Indian Hill

has made it a point to step up their messaging on Facebook, finding that in post engagement data,
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there are many parents not only liking and commenting on posts related to what students are

doing week to week with the character strength they are studying. For example, the greatest

engaged post, was the mini-documentary that has now been viewed more than 16,000 times on

Facebook. It has been said by founder Mike Erwin many times that although the title of the

nonprofit may suggest never ending happiness, the project is about character. Our entire staff is

now motivated to create original content to engage our school family audience and beyond. We

now have a weekly 30-minute podcast that profiles a discussion with a staff member or parent.

The podcast reaches 200 committed listeners every week. In essence, all of these activities are

part of the playbook of modern public relations and marketing to promote the “Other People

Matter” mindset. There is greater trust and understanding because of these communications,

thus allowing staff and parents to have deeper and more meaningful discussions about their

student’s well-being.

The motivation for using these 21st century business orientated marketing tactics is

rooted in Blankstein’s recommendation of achieving “mutual understanding and empathy”

(Blankstein, 2013, p. 193). Our parents lead very busy lives and even though we hold multiple

conference sessions and many engaging school events, social media is a location that many of

them visit. While this is uncharted waters, especially in the field of education, there are many

opportunities to use it as a force for good. In the rapidly changing world of Amazon Prime and

Netflix, it is absurd that schools would avoid leveraging this space, especially if it means that it

can create that foot in the door, or conversation starter that can lead to build a bridge to a deeper

conversation and ultimately trust.

Principle 6: Building Sustainable Leadership Capacity

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What good is it when a leader is driven and dynamic and they bring about success to an

organization and as soon as they leave, so does the fire? Leaders with a macro view and a vision

for the long term understand this and actively give away power and attempt to work themselves

out of a job. Blankstein cites this type of shared leadership as necessary, because the job of the

principal is simply “too big to do alone”, but also because it “develops commitment and yields

higher student achievement” (Blankstein, 2013, pp. 209-210).

Of course, like most initiatives, one of the main drivers of success is principal leadership.

The Positivity Project has principal’s sign a pledge that they commit to having their school

engage in near daily short hits centered around a different character strength. The best leaders

understand that in this day and age, a top down approach does not work. There were many

months spent engaging the school’s leadership team so they could tiptoe into understanding the

purpose, goals, and approach of the strategy. Although not central to implementing the strategy,

influential staff members were sought out to be champions of the process. Two teachers were

asked to attend an implementation summit in Syracuse, NY. Both were chosen for specific

reasons. One teacher had high social intelligence and pull with peers, parents and community

members. The other teacher was more reserved, but a strong and trusted teacher. She also

happened to be tech savvy and able to infuse tech and social media into the professional

development and the online parent engagement component. These two are the teachers that

came back and planned the scavenger hunt to introduce it to the staff. Since then, the rest of the

staff has become excited about the project and are not only doing the bare minimum with the

content delivery, but being creative with their students in their own right.
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The plan for the future is to send more Indian Hill teachers through one-day Positivity

Project seminars alongside teachers from other Grand Blanc and county schools that are

beginning their journey. They can speak to their own experiences, but also take on a leadership

role in helping other schools decide how they want to implement it in their own autonomous

way. There is power in the fact that teachers have autonomy to stay within a framework for the

project, but also add their own unique spice to it. They feel valued and trusted as professionals

this way, but especially when they are given some leadership responsibilities.

Conclusion

This project is in it’s infancy and therefore lacks hard data to prove it’s efficacy, but it’s

message of empathy and positive language is lighting a spark in its initial partner schools. In a

mere year and a half the project will grow from one partner school outside Syracuse, NY to

almost 200 schools nationwide in the 2017-18 school year. The fact that the there is no cost to

schools to partner is fantastic, but more importantly, when schools partner they become leaders

and influencers in their own right. This is truly not a canned program, but rather a social

movement in schools and beyond that is staring hatred and divisiveness in the face with an open

heart and a message that “Other People Matter”. Anything that any of us can do to build

stronger relationships with those around us will ultimately lead to greater understanding, mutual

care and respect, and a deep feeling of life satisfaction.

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References

Blankstein, Alan M. (2013). ​Failure is not an option: Six principles that guide student

​ ​ Edition).​ Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin

achievement in high-performing schools (3rd

Press.