Character Education Paying Dividends at KIPP

Reprinted from The Houston Chronicle

Just seeing the word "bravery" atop his regular progress reports makes 12-year-old Ismael Lopez stand a little taller. It surprised the quiet, deliberate sixth-grader that the character trait showed up among his strongest in an assessment that he and his classmates at KIPP Courage in Spring Branch take as part of the school curriculum. "I didn't know I was brave," he said.

What he does know is that his KIPP campus' sharpened focus on character development makes his school a better place. Students are kinder and display fewer behavior problems than at his previous elementary school.

KIPP - a network of 141 public schools with 50,000 students nationally - partnered with a team of psychologists and academics to develop a list of seven character traits that best predict success: zest, grit, selfcontrol, optimism, gratitude, social intelligence and curiosity.

The charter chain's work has put it on the leading edge of character education, experts said.

In 2009, a KIPP campus in New York piloted a character development program, and the work has since spread. Several area schools send home character growth cards along with the traditional report card, a practice co-founder Mike Feinberg expects to expand.

While the charter chain's founding motto has always been "Work hard. Be nice," teaching and measuring well-researched character traits is a step forward for teachers and students, Feinberg said.

"In the past, it's always been the feeling and the culture of the room, but we had a hard time explaining it," he said. "Now, we've been able to put words to it." Feinberg is quick to add: "This is not to say KIPP has gone fluffy."

Preparing low-income students to succeed in college is a tricky formula that includes developing character traits to help students overcome the adversity they will face, as well as ensuring that they have stellar reading, math and critical-thinking skills, experts said.

"It's the perfect counter-balance to high-stakes testing," said David Meketon, school research liaison for the department of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, which is working with KIPP and other schools. One of the most fully developed character programs is at Lopez's school, which opened in 2012 on the campus of Landrum Middle School.

Students are handed colorful "ganas" cards - a colloquial Spanish word for "desire" or "passion" - when they display a positive character trait. Each ganas adds $1 to their weekly paychecks, a common behavior tool used at KIPP schools. Infractions - such as failing to show the self control needed to hand in homework - count against their tallies.

Top-earning students are celebrated weekly, and children must reach certain averages to earn a spot on end-of-year trips. Ryan Hambley, a math teacher who heads the character development program at KIPP Courage, said the work has made him a more satisfied teacher.

He regularly hears students talk about traits like gratitude and is better able to identify children's strengths. "It's just beautiful. It's nice," said Hambley, who taught for four years in the Houston ISD before joining KIPP. "I became a better person by teaching character."

Jonathan Doan, 11, said he loves getting rewarded with ganas cards. "It's a piece of gold," he said "It's precious. It makes you feel good about yourself, like you're doing something amazing."