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Character education is the intentional efforts a school takes to promote students' understanding of, capacity to critically reason about, motivation for, and ability to act in accordance with ethical values and principles. Character education is ultimately a matter of school reform. Therefore it requires committed leadership and takes multiple years to accomplish. In truth, character education is a journey that is ongoing. Leadership changes, children graduate, and teachers retire or relocate. Each year brings a new opportunity for the school to recommit to the development of good character in all members of a school community. Without the active support of school and district leadership, and without the patience and commitment of school teachers and administrators to stay the course, character education is much less likely to be effectively implemented. The stakes for character education are high, our nation depends on it.

Character education is a widely misunderstood discipline. Some think it is a recent phenomenon, when in fact it probably dates back, at least in the Western world, to the classical Greeks over 2,000 years ago. Some think it is a religious phenomenon (particularly a conservative Christian one), when in fact it is a widely accepted secular phenomenon that is taught in public schools.

What kids say about bullies:
•    ‘Adam is always calling people who are littler than him names.’
•    ‘Jason teases me just because I’m different and he makes me upset.’
•    ‘Kim spreads lies about me by email every week.’
•    ‘I walked around the corner and Jeff kicked me for no reason.’
•    ‘Sally punches, pushes and pinches me and pulls my hair.’

“Not getting it” can occur between generations as well as people. Music (which is part of the basic desire for romance) is a good case in point. When I was a kid in the 1970s, my parents could not understand how I could like rock ’n’ roll. They thought it was noise and did not let me play it when they were home. Some said it was the music of the devil, or at least the communists, but the communists argued that rock ’n’ roll music was a certain sign that western civilization was crumbling under the weight of capitalism. Like most parents, mine dismissed the hours I spent listening to rock ’n’ roll as the behavior of a foolish teenager. When I got to college, however, I dated a number of women who thought I was some kind of cultural lowlife for liking rock music. In their opinion, people who liked classical music had reached a higher level of consciousness than had rockers. The general principle was, “If you like music X, and I like music Y, and it is because I am superior to you, and Y is the music of superior people.”

Tranquility is a psychological state that is defined as the absence of disturbance and turmoil, or the absence of anxiety, stress, and fear. Its primal origins are in animal instincts to flee danger and seek safety. How strongly people desire tranquility depends on how motivated they are to live a stress-free life. Some people fall apart at the first signs of stress. These people have a strong need for a tranquil, or stress-free, lifestyle. Other people can tolerate stress reasonably well even though they do not enjoy it. These people have a low need for a tranquil lifestyle.