Citizenship Returns & the Returns are TOV!

In this week's Parade Magazine there was an article called, "Operation Good Citizen: How we're teaching kids to do the right thing.”  When I was in elementary school, there was a class on citizenship. It disappeared from the curriculum for decades and is now it’s returning in the 2015 version. A fitting definition from Webster's is, "The quality of an individual's response to membership in a community."

A number of schools across the country are participating in programs like the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation's character development program. These courses teach essential values of character education -- from creating a caring school community and providing students with opportunities for moral actions to engaging families and community members in the character-building efforts.

In one school, all children K-8 are assigned to one of 46 "school families" that include teachers, custodians, secretaries and administrators. These groups meet regularly, sometimes eat lunch together and do team building activities. The students remain with these "families" all through school. It gives them opportunities to build relationships with other students and adults. One principal said, "There's something palpable here when you walk into our building. The school's CORE VALUES of RESPECT, RESPONSIBILITY and CARING are tied to everything we do."

Those CORE VALUES were the result of months of CONVERSATIONS between TEACHERS, STUDENTS, PARENTS, BOARD MEMBERS and COMMUNITY MEMBERS. They all came to a CONSENSUS on the VALUES THEY WANTED TO BUILD EVERYTHING ELSE AROUND!

This is the ESSENCE OF TOV – helping people create VALUES-BASED RELATIONSHIPS on SHARED CORE VALUES and working together to solve problems and meet the needs of the common good.

Kids need and want someone to tell them it's OK to do the right thing. A student in a New Jersey school developed a "Do the Right Thing App", which recognizes and applauds good behavior. Many of these programs also include teaching and mentoring the qualities of Leadership. A number of schools saw a drop in violence, vandalism, weapons and substance abuse. Fights were down 84% as well as harassment and bullying. Attendance, grades and SATs were all up. 

When CORE VALUES Protect Life, Preserve Life, Make Life more Functional and Increase the Quality of Life, the returns are TOV!  These are the Citizens I want peopling my world. What do you think?

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Be Empowered & Do TOV!

Rabbi Jeffrey Leynor