Birchwood Blog

March

Practicing Character: Courage

3/13/2025

By CHARLES DEBELAK
Founder-in-Residence

This is the sixth installment of Mr. Debelak's Character Education series. This academic year, through essays and videos, Mr. Debelak will discuss Birchwood School of Hawken’s character education program, explaining what we mean by good character, why we place importance on character education, and how we carry out an effective program that gets results. A companion video to this essay is linked below.

In the next series of articles, I would like to explain our definition of seven Aristotelian virtues and how they can be practiced. As you will recall, in order to cultivate good character in children, teachers must provide instruction about virtues that inspire children. In addition, they need to create opportunities to practice virtue over an extended period of time until virtuous behaviors become habit.

February

How to Develop Good Character: The Role of Culture

2/3/2025

By CHARLES DEBELAK
Founder-in-Residence

This is the fifth installment of Mr. Debelak's Character Education series. This academic year, through essays and videos, Mr. Debelak will discuss Birchwood School of Hawken’s character education program, explaining what we mean by good character, why we place importance on character education, and how we carry out an effective program that gets results. A companion video to this essay is linked below.

In deriving principles for an effective character education program, we answer three questions:

1) What do we mean by good character?

2) Why is it important that schools construct a meaningful character education program?

3) How do we build a realistic and effective framework; what pieces are needed?

The “how” question includes three aspects – teaching, training and culture. Previously, I discussed teaching and training. Here I will discuss the role of culture.

January

How to Forge Good Character: Training

1/7/2025

By CHARLES DEBELAK
Founder-in-Residence

This is the fourth installment of Mr. Debelak's Character Education series. This academic year, through essays and videos, Mr. Debelak will discuss Birchwood School of Hawken’s character education program, explaining what we mean by good character, why we place importance on character education, and how we carry out an effective program that gets results. A companion video to this essay is linked below.

In deriving the principles of an effective character education, we answer three questions: What do we mean by good character? Why is it imperative that the school constructs a meaningful character education program? And finally, based upon the “what” and the “why,” we deduce the “how” and construct a realistic and effective plan toward realizing our hopes.

The “how” includes three aspects – teaching, training, and culture. In last month’s essay, I discussed teaching. Here, I discuss training.