Educating for character

Char.ec.ter Noun /ˈkariktər/ The distinct nature of something

Last week, the New York Times magazine carried a provocative article titled "What if the secret to success is failure". The article lays out the thought-provoking questions and experiments conducted by two leading schools. The coveted Riverdale Country School and the acclaimed KIPP charter schools of New York city experimented with the idea of character education.

Interestingly, both schools arrived at the idea of character education from diametrically opposite experiences. Riverdale educates the most affluent students on Manhattan's Eastside. KIPP educates children from the lowest income families and has had great success in helping them develop academic competence. Riverdale's headmaster Randolph sought character education because his affluent high-achieving students have it easy. They achieve success easily. This, he believes doesn't really prepare them for real life, when the going will get tough. In fact, Randolph noted that KIPP students have an advantage over Riverdale students in the long run. KIPP students who do well in college are not those necessarily those that did academically well at KIPP. Instead they are the ones who have character traits like optimism and the ability to persevere through setbacks. Levin, the Superintendent of KIPP schools sought out character education to help his students develop faith and confidence in themselves, to know the secrets of success, success that came to their affluent counterparts so easily.

Randolph and Levin were united through the work of Martin Silegman's work on character traits which one of his graduate student's later expanded and make more accessible. Duckworth conducted extensive research on Silegman's work and identified six character traits that she lays out as essential to long term success. On her list are: "zest, grit, self-control, social intelligence, gratitude, optimism and curiosity." These are identified as performance character traits. Performance character traits are different from what many of us think of as character traits, namely generosity, integrity, fairness and such. Randolph contends that moral character traits are too vague.

I cannot but agree that zest, grit, self-control, social intelligence, gratitude, optimism and curiosity create a unique recipe for performance success in life. They are what I term the qualities of perseverence, the ability I consider most critical for anyone to achieve a high level of excellence in life. That said, I cannot accept and neither do Randolph and Levin that these are the traits that matter for a fulfilled life, that being the ultimate goal of any character traits.

I ask these questions, then:

Can performance be separated from morality?: I think it is seductive to systematize personality, character and moral traits but I don't believe that these are quantifiable, let alone completely categorizable qualities. Humans morality and grit is way more complex and rich than can be defined in terms of 24 or 6 traits and I think perfomance needs to be braided with morality. For example, where does Humility lie on the radar of performance traits? When you fail, when you succeed, I think humility, a good dose of it, brings perspective and grace into our ability to respond to the situation. All this is to say that performance is ultimately a result of grit and zest as it is as result of softer, more "vague", more heart-centered traits like humility. Without the softer touch, success is mechanical. It is not graceful.

What is success?: This brings me to my next question. I guess performance traits can be held higher than other traits if we buy into a particular notion of success — success that is about achievement and performance. But even the most successful will tell you that it gets lonely at the top. That what they seek most is connection and fulfillment through relationships, through meaningful contributions. More importantly, we have many successful people in the world and just today, the earth got "a little hotter, the waters a little more acidic and life a little more thread bear." (Orr, 1991) What is the point of success if it comes at the expense of essential living ecosystems, at the price of sensitivity?

Where is the person behind these traits?: If these traits cover a person's moral and performance landscape, where is there in them a sense of emotional response, that comes from one human connecting to another, not out of a sense of "I should be responsible or kind" but rather "I cannot help but be responsible and kind". When I think of Philipe Petit and his indescribable urge to walk on a wire laid between the Twin Towers, I do believe he had zest and grit but as he said, he also felt like a "poet writing poetry in the sky". Even performance is unique to every person and it is motivated by something essential to the very being of the person.

I think it is the loss of spontaneous, heartfelt morality or work ethic that draws my attention to the dangers of systematizing a set of traits that are fundamentally undefinable. For if we define them, we take away the very essence of what they mean. I hope Randolph and Levin continue their experiments. They are onto something, something essential in terms of tangible results-focused success. I hope also that their experiments grow to leave room for the less definable but critical moral traits. Then, sucess can also be moral because we what use is success if it comes at the expense of stripping away natural habitats, build up of green house gases or the generation of nuclear arms? Ultimately, I hope their experiments lead us to realizing that human morality and character is unique to each of us.

There are, I contend 7 billion character traits in the world today and each one is as important as they other. The dictionary agrees with me. It defines character as "the distinctive nature of something."