AJC.com > Blogs > Get Schooled > Archives > 2006 > November > 07
Tuesday, November 7, 2006
“Violence is…
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
…any word, sign or action that hurts another person’s feelings, body or things.”
My polling precinct is an elementary school, and this sign was on the wall near my voting booth. I may not have gotten the language exactly right, but the gist is it’s a very broad definition. There were all kinds of other signs around the school pretty much begging students to be nice.
It reminded me of the character education craze of the late 1990s. The Legislature mandated schools teach kids how to be decent people, and schools responded with programs like “Word of the Week” and “Lifeskills.”
In 1999, I visited a Henry County elementary school, where a teacher was dutifully weaving the concept of patience into language arts and social studies lessons.
Are schools today knocking themselves out to teach character education? Does it do any good? Or has it quietly fallen by the wayside as a preventative way to address discipline problems?
