It looks like the holiday season has arrived - decorations are up, travel plans are being made, holiday dinner menus have been made and gifts are being wrapped - what a wonderful time of the year.

As I reflect on the “holiday season,” I wonder about those who are less fortunate: how does the holiday season feel to them? How do we help those who are less fortunate? How do we teach our children to care about others?

As an early childhood educator, I strive to instill in my college students (who are planning to be teachers), the importance of teaching children to be kind, caring and compassionate. Many would argue that this is the responsibility of parents and not teachers. Of course, I believe that parents are children's “first teachers” and that the primary responsibility for teaching empathy lies with the family, but can it hurt to reinforce those skills at school? Aren't we all important influences on the lives of children? Aren't there acceptable “behaviors” that can be reinforced at school without offending a family's beliefs? I'm thinking of things like: honesty, kindness, cooperation and respect.

As residents of New York state, we are fortunate to have legislation that mandates that schools participate in providing instruction in “civility, citizenship and character education” (Safe Schools Against Violence Act). The law allows each school district to develop its own plans for implementing instruction, thereby allowing schools to “tailor” its plans to meet the needs of its student population.

Many schools have utilized information developed by Dr. Tom Lickona from Cortland State College to integrate “character education” into the curriculum. Lickona is a nationally-known expert in character education and has coined the phrase, “the fourth and fifth Rs,” which refers to the addition of “respect” and “responsibility” to “reading, writing and arithmetic.”

His ideas include: teachers as role models, developing classroom communities, fostering positive relationships among children, using discipline as a tool for character development and involving students in solving classroom and school problems.

These ideas translate easily into every aspect of classroom functioning and provide real-life opportunities for children to practice their skills on a daily basis.

It's amazing to see the difference in children who have participated in a good character education program for several years and those who haven't. I recently observed two 4-year-olds in a preschool classroom where character education is stressed and integrated into the curriculum; one child had attended the school for two years, one child had just enrolled and had only been at the school for a month. Both children came from similar backgrounds and both had caring and involved parents.

The two children were involved in a rather “heated discussion” about who was going to use the grocery cart in the “supermarket area.” Both children were holding onto the cart and were refusing to let go; the “new” child began tugging on the cart and loudly voicing her displeasure about sharing while the “old” child calmly stated her feelings about the need to share and how they could both push the cart together and then said, “we always cooperate in our room.”

In the end, the children ended-up working through their dilemma and played together in the supermarket for the next 30 minutes. The moral of the story: given the opportunities and tools, children can learn how to solve problems and can play together peacefully.

As early childhood educators, we should work to formulate our own plans for integrating character education into our classrooms; always remembering that this does not involve teaching only a lesson here and there, but rather teaching lessons, using books, planning for cooperative learning and providing opportunities to practice skills on an on-going basis. There is a wealth of resources available to teachers; from professional resource books (“Raising Good Children,” “Creative Resources for the Anti-bias Classroom”) to Web sites (www.character.org, www.wingsforkids.org and www.charactercounts.org) to books for children (“Uncle Willie & the Soup Kitchen,” “The Crayon Box That Talked,” “Hey, Little Ant” and “The Peace Book”).

And remember, “One of our most basic responsibilities as adults is to sustain our civilization by passing on the values that are the foundation of our society.”

- Dr. Tom Lickona

Patricia Gridley, Ph.D., is an

associate professor and the

coordinator of the

Early Childhood program at

Cayuga Community College