Character Education

We have a program in our district that we are required to teach. It is a "Character Education" type of program. I have a lot of problems with it, but here we are teaching it. It's reality. I try to take the most important of these and discuss respect, teamwork, and personal responsibility. I don't like it though. This isn't my place to be teaching these lessons. On a local social media site a parent went off on a tirade about the homework that was assigned from this program. The parent was basically saying it isn't the schools place to be telling me to teach my kid this stuff. I overheard a group of teachers discussing it and they said "Well if the parents would do their job, we wouldn't have to be teaching them these lessons."   They have a point. However, It is the parents job. We do have kids coming to school without any moral compass. It might be the only place they hear you can't behave like this in society. My question is When did parents hand over the keys to their child's character education? It's happened many parents gave it up, handed it over, and didn't question it. It's a scary thing...but it has happened.

On Friday to prepare for a parent night this coming week we made a little display. We had the kids write what they would like to be when they grow up. I've done many similar activities over the years asking kids this question. It helps you to get to know them. It ignites their imagination. I've never had the reaction I had from a student this year.  I looked over at him staring at the paper and he is crying. He appears frustrated, angry, and sad all at the same time. I know it isn't because of the difficulty of the assignment. He's a bright and a quick thinker. I called him to come over and talk to me. I asked every question I could think of to ask to figure out why he was upset. At first I thought it was because a friend hurt his feelings. Then I realized he only was upset when I asked him to do this assignment. I asked him to bring the paper over and brainstorm. The more ideas I suggested the more the tears fell. Finally I said lets do this we picked a very generic response to what he would be. I said you're seven years old writing this down doesn't mean you can't change your mind. He was having none of it but finally went with the generic response. I am still trying to figure out why this would make a child so upset. After thinking of all the questions I asked him I realized it might be simple. It might be how his parents are talking to him about his future. I'm going to be thinking this one over for a long time.