Why Teaching Character Must Start Early?

It's never too early to begin teaching children how to become caring, confident and respectful of those around them. While parents are, of course, a child's first teacher when it comes to lessons about character, it's also important for teachers to reinforce those lessons at school. When kids see their most influential role models showing respect, kindness and other positive traits, they gain strong values as a result.

Positive Learning Environment

Teaching character in schools creates a happy, safe classroom environment which in turn promotes a positive learning experience. Instead of spending countless hours handling adolescent problems, the teachers have more time to focus on teaching and the students have more time to focus on learning. This will not only foster a sense of success for the students academically, but it will also improve their confidence socially.

Comprehensive Approach

The objective of character education is not to overtake the parents' role in teaching values. Rather, further emphasize core values such as respect, civic awareness, fairness and justice, and responsibility for self and others. The responsibility to teach our students about character should be shared among parents, teachers, and members of the community. This combined effort helps to teach children how to live and work together as students, friends, family and neighbors, and highlights the importance of being a contribution to our nation and the world.

For most schools, this type of character education should be developed using a comprehensive approach that offers multiple ways for kids to understand character. The following are three goals that schools should concentrate on in order to effectively implement character education into their classrooms:

- Gather ideas and develop a strategy. When formulating a character development program, it's best to include staff, parents, students, and any members of the community that are interested. This partnership is crucial not just because it brings more well-rounded ideas to the table, but it also sends a consistent message to the students from all the people involved in their lives.

- Provide students with positive role models. Teachers must lead by example and integrate character education into every aspect of their teaching.

- Consistency and commitment are key. Everyone involved in planning and executing a character education program must work together to help maintain character education as a fundamental part of all educational plans.