The fourth developmental area in "SPICE" is "C" which stands for Character. This area addresses the actual personality and thought process of a young adolescent. School effects an adolescents character by a great deal because of the amount of time spent there throughout their young lives.
Young Adolescent Character Traits-
As parents, you have to realize that your child generally has character traits that young adolescents have naturally. According to Ms. Sara Davis Powell, these character traits involve fairness, asking unanswerable questions, needing support but don't ask for it, and making poor decisions for peer acceptance. These four traits happen among adolescents but are not always seen. They want to be independent but they do not know how to. They try to make sense of a world they have not seen yet and want to know everything at that very moment. They will learn how and when they want to.
School Programs-
As adults and teachers, we try to help along the process of young adolescent character traits. Schools have adopted character-development programs that are brought to students in a variety of different ways. But no matter what, not all teachers can agree on what is best for character-development. Sometimes teachers argue on which character traits need to have the most focus. But in the article "Intrinsic Goodness: Facilitating Character Development," written by Richardson and Norman (2000), 10 necessary attributes for character growth are addressed. These 10 are self-discovery, self-management, delayed gratification, courage, honesty, empathy, altruism, problem solving, tolerance, and social deftness.
Even though not all teachers can agree on what characteristics need to be concentrated on, it is our job to be the "character-building program." Like Ms. Sara Davis Powell says, "whether they acknowledge it or not, students watch us and count on us to model exemplary character." So it is up to us as teachers to help these students build the right character no matter where we teach.
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