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You are here: WOW Kampung / Tag: character

Tag Archive for: character

What is your code of honour?

24 Nov 2014 / 0 Comments / in Education/by Chris Jensen

stanford-prison-experimentIn 1971, Phillip Zimbardo launched the now infamous Stanford Prison Experiment. 24 young men were randomly divided into prisoners and guards and put in a fake prison. The prisoners were arrested at their homes by real police officers, and given cell numbers, prison uniforms, all to see what the effects were of putting people in a dehumanising environment.

The experiment was cut abruptly short when it was discovered how devastating an effect certain circumstances can have on our morality. Though the “guards” were just random participants, and they knew the prisoners were too, they played out the roles they thought were expected of them frighteningly “well”. The experimenters began to fear for the emotional and physical well being of the prisoners, and an experiment that was to last 2 weeks, was ended after just 6 days.

The experiment was one that helped reveal what is called the “banality of evil” – the idea that, given the right circumstances, most everyday people can commit, or stand by and watch, unspeakable acts of horror against humanity.

Thirty years later, Philip Zimbardo is still studying the things that change everyday people, but now he is working on what he calls the “banality of heroism“, basically the same idea as above, but with a better outcome: given the right set of circumstances, ordinary everyday people can turn into heroes.

Philip defines a hero (a term he feels is getting watered down today), as an act or quest in the good of humanity, and that involves a risk or personal sacrifice. The second part is important, without the risk of physical or social harm, they may be acting kindly, or altruistically, but not heroically.

One thing that Philip and his team have discovered in their research of what are the right circumstances to forge a hero, is that they have a code. They have a set of moral principals that guide them in their lives. In an article about heroism, Philip tells the story of Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese consul official who was working in Lithuania during World War II. Sugihara signed more than 2,000 Visas for Jewish refugees that were fleeing persecution, even though he’s superiors gave direct orders not to.

Every day he risked his job and his families welfare to help thousands who’s lives were at risk.

Sugihara had a code that he weighed his decisions against – raised in a Samurai family, he was guided by the Samrai adage “Even a hunter cannot kill a bird which flies to him for refuge” in making his decision.

Philip Zimbardo and his colleagues have found that having a moral code helps prepare people to be heroes. It gives them a code by which to guide their own actions, and also in learning and understanding that code, it helps them to mentally prepare for situations where they may find that code challenged.

How much time do we spend today on building and maintaining our moral code? Particularly in a secular education, we spend a lot of time learning and practicing rules for solving maths problems, science problems, and many other technical problems. But how much time do we spend comparatively, on moral problems, and on building our own moral code?

Based on the work of Philip Zimbardo and the work of Heroic Imagination Project, its likely it will be time well spent. Why not take some time to examine what your moral code is? What are your absolutes?

Photo Credit: mharrsch via Compfight cc

A Class Divided: Immunising Against Discrimination

20 Nov 2014 / 0 Comments / in for Parents, General Paper, Lower Primary, Lower Secondary, Primary School, Secondary School, Social Studies, Teaching Resources, Upper Primary, Upper Secondary/by Chris Jensen

In 1968, Jane Elliot ran what many today would consider a very risky exercise with her class to teach them about discrimination.

She divided her 3rd grade class students into blue eyes and brown eyes and told them that blue eyed students were superior in every way and were to be treated as such.

This powerful experiment shaped the children’s understanding of racism, bigotry and other forms of discrimination for the rest of their lives, in effect immunising the students against discriminatory thought habits. It also had profound and surprising results for the student’s academic grades.

Below is a free documentary on the experiment and it’s uses.

What do you think, would you conduct such an exercise with your class?

Games for a Positive Attitude

21 May 2014 / 0 Comments / in Games, Lower Primary, Lower Secondary, Primary School, Secondary School, Teaching Resources, Tertiary, Upper Primary, Upper Secondary/by Chris Jensen

Positive attitude is a big key to building resilience. Students that can see the brighter side of things, or re-frame negative experiences into positive ones have a much better chance of bouncing back from failure, which in turn is one of the keys to success.

This article has some simple games that can help students practice such a mindset shift.

The second game will likely be good fun for the students that are enjoy talking back and giving very clever answers.

Game Ideas for a Positive Attitude | eHow.

The big mistake we all make when teaching apologies

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29 Apr 2014 / 0 Comments / in Lower Primary, Lower Secondary, Pre-school, Primary School, Secondary School, Upper Primary, Upper Secondary/by Chris Jensen

Learning to say sorry properly and understanding why we say it is key moment for character development.

In the busy classroom making time for these teachable moments can seem really hard, but as Joellen explains, investing the time brings huge returns for the class dynamic, for student’s understanding of others, which in turn, makes for better learning conditions.

The more we learn about people the more we’re discovering that emotional intelligence is one of the keys to success. Everyone makes mistakes as they learn to become a member of society, it’s important we see these for what they are – a great opportunity to teach key aspects of emotional intelligence: empathy and self reflection.

Developing Resilience

16 Nov 2013 / 0 Comments / in Teaching Resources/by Chris Jensen

Are you and your students resilient?

Resilience is the ability to bounce back and learn from failures. Failures in life are inevitable, the important thing is developing healthy mental habits that enable us to learn and grow from them rather than dwell on them.

Mindtools has a nice page setting out the ingredients for resilience nice and clearly.

Drama Games to Build Character

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01 Nov 2013 / 0 Comments / in Lower Primary, Pre-school, Primary School/by Chris Jensen

This website is an excellent resource for simple drama game ideas that can tie into curriculum and teach good character to young students in Kindergarten and Primary.

Creative Drama Lesson Plans.

Why character and environmental education?

13 Dec 2012 / 0 Comments / in for Parents, Green club, Lower Secondary, Secondary School, Social Studies, Tertiary, Upper Secondary/by Chris Jensen

What does the environment have to do with character? And why is character that important anyway?

This powerful video from Thailand highlights the interconnections between consumption, our society, and our happiness.

Teachers, you may find this useful when trying to impress on your colleagues or parents, the importance of using environment to teach character.

If you’re working with green club or secondary students, this can be a great video for prompting your students to think about the implications of the way we live.

Tips for Play

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04 Dec 2012 / 0 Comments / in for Parents, Pre-school/by Chris Jensen

Why play?We’ve all heard that play is important for development and learning, but it’s not always easy to know how to play or create a space where children are able to play.

Early Childhood Australia has an early learning series with some great, straightforward tips on how to approach play and what you can do to make sure your that play is beneficial for your child.

http://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/pdf/everyday_learning/EDL1004_sample.pdf

We the citizens of Singapore?

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12 Nov 2012 / 0 Comments / in Lesson Plans, Lower Secondary, Primary School, Secondary School, Upper Primary, Upper Secondary/by Chris Jensen

What’s your answer?

Last week Calvin Soh talked about a brilliant idea he got from his daughter as she was trying to learn the national pledge:

Because she wasn’t sure of the words, she phrased every line like a question, eg:

We the citizens of Singapore?

Which inspired a brilliant starting point for teaching civics – turn each line into a question and discuss and answer those questions as a class.

We, the citizens of Singapore?
Pledge ourselves as one united people?
Regardless of race, language or religion? Read more →

Resilience

10 Nov 2012 / 0 Comments / in Lesson Plans, Lower Secondary, Secondary School, Teaching Resources, Tertiary, Upper Secondary/by Chris Jensen

A wonderful exercise that demonstrates how both character development and environment are interlinked.

This activity and discussion from eco literacy digs into resilience both in the personal sense of the word and what it means from an systems perspective as well.

http://www.ecoliteracy.org/downloads/building-resilience-home

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