Why Is Character Education Important?

By CHARLES DEBELAK
Founder-in-Residence

This is the second 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.

As I noted last month, you don’t need to spend too much time at Birchwood before you realize the importance we place on nurturing good character. Good character describes the collection of habituated virtues that support and empower a person to grow, thrive, and flourish. 

Five Reasons

This month, I want to explain why Birchwood takes this matter seriously. It is essential to a good education. In fact, given the world our children are living in, it is vital. Character education requires the same level of dedication as we afford math or reading instruction. Here I cite five reasons for this emphasis.

First, more than any other factor, good character accounts for a person's success in life and for a person’s sense of fulfillment and meaning. This is not my opinion; history, cognitive science, and the social sciences concur. Good character accounts for 75% of a person’s attainments while 25% can be attributed to natural talent. If you are an administrator in an elementary and middle school, the math makes an inevitable decision. Birchwood must pay attention to the development of character.

Furthermore, because we know that good character is the aggregate of habituated virtues, we can conclude that these virtues are learned behaviors. Through instruction, through teaching and coaching, virtues can be nurtured in each child. Children can be taught and coached toward having good character. Their work habits can improve. Their self-control can be strengthened. Their sense of justice can mature.

Yet a third reason is that the pathway to happiness is the same pathway that leads to growth through good character. This connection is important and – once again – human history, cognitive science, and the social sciences concur. Every child is born with innate capacities to be virtuous. It is part of human nature. It is a human endowment. Within each child is the readiness to be courageous, self-controlled, compassionate or wise. 

Aristotle called these capacities potentialities. When potentialities are cultivated, they become actualities. In this process, a person is not only developing good character, but they are also becoming more human since these virtues are part of human nature. The result is a deep sense of fulfillment and, yes, enduring happiness.

Every parent hopes their children will have a happy life. But too often adult efforts to make children happy focus on external factors. We focus on environments; on places to go; on ways to have fun. Yet we know few of these efforts bring lasting happiness. Real happiness, the type of happiness common to all human beings across time and space, is the happiness that comes with becoming more human – more courageous, more compassionate, more self-controlled, more grateful.

Once again, I think it is obvious. If we want our children to possess enduring happiness, then we must nurture their character.

A fourth reason to emphasize character development is that our children live in a world that encourages not virtue, but vice. Instead of fostering the practices of hard work and goal setting, the world encourages a lifestyle centered on entertainment. Instead of strengthening the practice of self-control, it argues for indulgence in fleeting pleasures. Instead of inspiring compassion and empathy for others, the world normalizes self-centeredness and victimization. 

Without deliberate character education, our children will be under the training of influences that habituate vice. Like helpless sheep, they will be led astray by the cheapening influences in our society.

Finally, as children become young teens, as they set out to chart their own courses in life, our direct influence over their conduct will diminish. Though this may cause concern, we should understand that if we make the effort for character education at an early age, we will also be educating a child’s conscience. 

The influence of a good conscience lasts a lifetime. Even though we cannot always be present in the lives of our children, a well-educated conscience can. It will continue to influence their decisions lifelong – pointing them toward growth and fulfillment. 

View the companion video: "2024-25 Character Series – Why Character Education?"
 
November: "How to Forge Good Character"

Charles Debelak is Founder-in-Residence, along with his wife, Helene. Together, the Debelaks founded Birchwood in 1984. Mr. Debelak’s writing provides parents with information about sound educational principles and child development issues gleaned from history, contemporary research, and his 50+ years of educating, coaching, and counseling children, young adults, and parents. This article appeared in the October 2024 edition of the school's monthly newsletter, "The Clipboard." 
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