On 21 st September 2021, the Centre for Character and Leadership (CCL) commemorated the International Day of Peace themed “Recovering better for an equitable and sustainable World’ through planting trees and offering  students mentorship. The day is purposed to promote the ideals of peace to the human race by providing opportunities to build a peaceful world where all humanity can live together without enmity regardless of their skin color, religion, nationality and ethnicity. Throughout human history, the yearning for lasting peace has remained to be a universal dream. However, true peace can only be realized by raising individuals of outstanding character. It is in this  background that CCL inspired the students of Highway Manyatta Mixed Secondary School to strive to be peace loving citizens and environmental stewards.

The 2021 peace theme aimed to inspire humanity from across the world to think creatively and collectively about how to transform our world into one that is more inclusive, sustainable and healthier.

Speaking during the tree planting activity, the School Principal urged the students to be agents of peace as he said, “always strive in developing peace within the self as a foundation of your character growth and harmonious existence within the school.”

The school leadership together with the students has committed in planting and taking care of trees as part of their environment responsibility. The activity was exciting as students, parents’ representatives and teachers took turns to plant the trees and water them. Students were also urged to each adopt a tree, tag a virtue and nurture the virtue within self as the tree grows. During the mentorship session, students were engaged on an interactive learning lesson with a focus on helping them to develop a positive attitude, reading culture and goal setting as they prepare to sit for the end of term exams. Guided by the school motto which says ‘Education is Power’ the students were encouraged to pursue their dreams and keep trusting in God. Also, students were challenged to believe in the self, manage their time well, set SMART goals, avoid the dream killers, love their teachers and school, complete assignments and submit for marking, develop personal time table, use of peer teaching and possess a winners’ spirits among others.

On developing a positive attitude, the speaker emphasized that “embrace a positive attitude since it’s the most important factor in determining success or failure.”

Towards the end of the lesson the students chanted that “I believe in myself because I know I am the best.” CCL appreciates the Kenya Forest Service (KFS) for the donations of trees and the school for taking ownership in environment conservation.

To develop good character, school leaders should intentionally create an environment that enhances virtues development in all aspects of daily school life. Also, all the teaching and non-teaching staff should lead as moral exemplars in the modelling of virtues. Lastly, students should be engaged in virtue reflection activities which helps to deepen their understanding and practice.

Berkowitz, M.W., Bier, M.C., & McCauley, B.  (2017). Toward a Science of Character Education. Frameworks for Identifying and Implementing Effective Practices. Journal of Character Education, Volume 13(I), 2017, pp. 33-51

Bier, M.C. (2021). Servant Leadership for School Principals: A Virtue Cultivation Model. Journal of Character Education Special Issue, 16, (2).

Hoerr, T. (2017). The Formative Five. Fostering Grit, Empathy and Other Success Skills Every Student Needs. Alexandria, VA: ASCD

The Character Education Partnership. (2007). Eleven Principles of Effective Character Education.https://www.researchgate.net/publication/45655772_Eleven_Principles_of_Effective_Character_Education

Schwartz, M. J. (2008). Introduction to Character Education and Effective Principles. Effective Character Education: A Guidebook for Future Educators. McGraw-Hill Publishers. P. 1-23

There is no single society that can remain vital or even flourish without imparting timeless or universally shared values to its younger generation. In other words, ‘young people are the future trustees of our society’. In this regard, parents, educators, schools and communities have no greater responsibility than to strive to raise virtuous and industrious citizens who are committed in building a nation. For instance, caring communities and educators need to work together towards helping learners to develop a vision, sense of belonging as well as to stretch their imagination and creativity ability.

Building strong and caring school communities is the foundation for raising good citizens. Culture in itself drives result! Successful schools create a “values- based” culture which embraces timeless Values such as Positive Attitude, Responsibility, Trustworthiness, Brotherhood, High Expectations, Respect, Generosity, Hope and Courage. These values if well embedded in the school curriculum, simultaneously help educators and learners to blend naturally in the culture. A value based school culture has potential of improving the learners’ behavior and academic outcomes. In addition, teachers and students tends to flourish in learning communities where there is a positive and conducive climate.

It is therefore important for school communities to be re-engineered to become more caring and productive in nurturing learners who are exposed to the incredible world of self-discovery, self-reliance and personal independence. Voice is a powerful tool, as Clifton Taulbert says “youngsters still need to hear the voice of the adults with whom they share their lives: voices that say we believe in you, we expect you to do well, and we admire your accomplishments.” Subsequently, the art of developing a productive and caring school climate demands for a collaborative effort of community actors ranging from parents, leaders, educators and related stakeholders from the society. No wonder the African saying ‘it takes a village to raise a child.’ The Centre for Character and Leadership continues to work closely with schools and helping them to develop caring and productive climate driven by timeless values.

Parents! Be close to your children, the world they live in is different from the world we were raised in several decades ago. Parenting comes with a responsibility of not just raising men and women in the society but raising a generation of youth that possess virtuous character, empathetic and committed global citizens. In recent days, the COVID-19 pandemic have adversely effected the normal school calendar. Unusually, children will be spending more time at home after school closures and recess while the 8 th grade and Fourth form will be sitting for their national examinations. Thus, parents are required to adjust their roles and take more time to counsel and interact with their children.
A key question in parenting is how to nurture healthy relationships, good morals and high discipline levels among the children. Secondly, how safe as parent can we control and support our children in relation to obeying the COVID-19 safety measures such as social distancing, wearing of masks, hand washing or sanitizing. A famous maxim in parenting is that ‘children are
watching’ and hence it requires parents to be good role models. Ideally, families are the bedrock of society and they are equally important in teaching and modeling virtues to the children. Psychologists argues that parents contribute to children’s moral development by providing an emotional environment and culture within the family that fosters the development and nurturing of virtues such as compassion, empathy, respect, humility, hard work and integrity among others.

During school holiday, parents and guardians are so called to accept and adopt parenting practices which can help to instill discipline and good morals to the children. Evidently, adolescent youth tend to be the most difficult persons to handle during the turning point of their lives from childhood to adulthood. Adolescents are faced with developmental conflict experiences attached to psychosocial crisis which could have a positive or negative outcome for personality development. At this stage of life, parents should be close to their children and be able to understand their needs according to gender and developmental stage.

The adolescent stage is lethal to both genders. The adolescent behaviors are influenced by factors such as negative peer pressure, lack of parental supervision, lack of school attendance, family dysfunction and gender norms. For instance, the negative peer pressure can easily Influence the young people into risky behaviors such as drug abuse, sexual orientation, violence and crime amongst other. Therefore, if the adolescent behavior is not successfully addressed at the developmental stage, the child’s future is likely or may completely take a diverted role.

In conclusion, parenting is not about physical beating, insulting and critiquing a child on his/her physical appearance, aptitude or competence. Parenting requires constructively engaging the child in one on one talk; building healthy relationship with the child; listening and understanding/ providing the child’s needs; appreciating the child; making a schedule of daily routine of work to keep the child busy; identifying and nurturing the child’s talent; and lastly set the best foot on the path for responsibly and accountable upbringing of the child for a successful future.

The wave of school unrest has been sweeping the Kenyan secondary schools each year and it is perceived as a great threat to the moral and academic attainment of the school going youth. This trend with its negative effects has not only resulted in students’ violence, rioting, strikes and the burning of school properties such as dormitories and laboratories but it has also led to the premature death of students.

Experts says that the leading causes school unrest include negative peer pressure, drug and substance abuse, exam phobia, students’ malicious actions, poor diet, harassment by teachers, high handedness by school administration. electrical faults, ineffective guidance and counselling programs, media influence, lack of good role models and broken families. In addition, there is an increasing rate of youth who drop out of school and college and some end up being engaged in crime and violence.

As of February 2021, numerous surging cases of school unrest has been reported across the country since the schools re-opened on January 4th. To some extent, experts have argued that the closure of schools for a period of 10 months in order to contain the spread of COVID-19 pandemic have largely contributed to the deteriorating discipline among the learners. In addition, many teenage girls were reported to be pregnant during the schools’ lockdown.

In the real sense, schools have a key responsibility for raising students who are not only intellectually vibrant but also morally strong and socially responsible. Researchers and education experts have put across numerous prevention strategies which can be used to prevent students unrest and burning of schools. This includes creating a friendlier community atmosphere in schools; establishing effective communication and reporting channels, strengthen the guidance and counselling departments; building positive relationships between students and teachers; assigning students adult role models and caring teachers as moral exemplars, and educate and prepare students on how to respond to fire alarms.

The Centre for Character and Leadership will continue to work closely with schools to implement Character Education Programme as the initiative offers practical research driven strategies designed to steer working relationship between parents, teachers and communities in the interest of nurturing good character and morals into the lives of the young people.

Our country is in a serious moral decline. Every day, the mind of the citizens is bombarded with the happening/s of evil acts across the nation. The vices such as social injustices, merciless killings, cheating culture in exams, high levels of corruption, unwed babies, broken marriages, and the biggest challenge is an erosion of unemployed youth who are engaged in various sort of criminal activities such as drug abuse and burglary to name but a few. In amidst of all these social challenges as well as social development, the country has no greater responsibility than to strive to raise virtuous citizens of good character and Citizenship.

Education psychologists argues that ‘good character consists of knowing the good, desiring the good, and doing the good.’ Education is a mutual connection that revolves around the individual’s habit of the mind, habit of the heart and habit of action. Good citizenship is assured when these habits are intertwined in social settings and services. Indeed, there is a dire need to foster on applied morals and good character development to the young people, such effort requires a diverse collaboration of actors such as parents, teachers, educators and government among other stakeholders in the society.

Character development among the leaners does not happen in a vacuum but it functions within a social environment which is deeply embedded in teaching and nurturing of values, knowledge and skills from childhood. Navigating and changing the complex systems of moral decline within our society requires particularly the connectedness of home, school and the community. Although, parents are the primary moral educators to their children, teachers play a key role as surrogate parents towards instilling moral, performance and civic values to the learners.

William Arthur once said, “The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.”

Values such as respect, responsibility, honesty, hard work, compassion, humility, perseverance, patriotism and fairness carries moral obligation in life and should be instilled to the mind of the learners. Since it takes a period time for a value to become a virtue, educators should help the learners to translate the abstract moral, performance and civic values into concrete moral behavior in their personal relationship. For instance, the learners should be helped to understand and practice on what it means by saying respect for oneself, respect for other people, and respect for all forms of life including the environment.

Researchers in the field of moral and character education have explored and documented numerous models and strategies for educators and practitioners as well as learners for use to inculcate the values in their life. These include use of storytelling, magic words, service learning, moral dilemma discussions, group discussions, peer interactive strategies, modelling, welcoming greetings and saying goodbye at the end of the lesson amongst many others. The Centre for Character and Leadership will continue to work closely with schools and government to implement Character Education Program as the initiative offers practical research driven strategies designed to steer working relationship between parents, teachers and communities in the interest of nurturing good character and citizenship to the young generation and the society.