Character Education: P.R.I.D.E.

Larger View 2008 New York State School of Character 2008 National School of Character

The Waterloo Middle School Story

The quest for Character Education at Waterloo Middle School began seven years ago with the focus on moral character.  As the years progressed and the culture of our middle school embraced moral character making it a true part of our community: the way we do business here, our focused changed to performance character traits. Over the past three years, and moving forward, our school community has strived for excellence through enhancing our program with initiative based on “Why not your Best?”, as proposed by Hal Urban.  These include quotes of the week based on doing your personal best, The A Team: a display of all student names with stars indicating how many A grades they received for the marking period; The Zone: the after school homework help program that gives the students a place to get a snack and assistance on their assignments; and classroom instruction preceded by class discussions of doing your personal best everyday.

The Waterloo Middle School community is always looking for ways to enhance our performance character initiatives.   Recently two staff members applied and received the Picturing America grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. They will be receiving a set of reproductions of American art that can be used to teach about the history and character of our nation.  They plan to share the reproductions to display and teach from throughout the year/curriculum.  Other examples of interdisciplinary performance character activities include our Black History Month Quilt which advisement groups researched a famous African-American, wrote a summary of their life and included pertinent pictures.  This quilt was on display in our school for the remainder of the school year.  For Women’s History Month, we have an awards assembly for “Women of Distinction” which are nominated by our students. These women can be community members, family members or nationally recognized women.  Our Giving Tree is yet another example of performance character.  This tree is laden with examples of our school community putting our character into action for the betterment of others, not for the recognition.  These are a sampling of our school character in motion. 

The Waterloo Middle School character education program is woven into the fabric of our school culture. All stakeholders take an active role in developing the character education traits in our school.  From the custodians and food service workers to the teachers and administration, we all work towards a common goal of academics and character together.  The heart of the program is our P.R.I.D.E. committee.  This committee, made up of teachers, teacher assistants, parents and administrators plan and implement the program.  These volunteers listen to the staff, parents and students to develop a program that will fit the needs of our community.  Members of this committee have taken on roles and responsibilities that have brought about significant change in our school culture.  They have implemented numerous initiatives: Character Quote of the week, Monday Morning Manners, The Purple Hands pledge, R.E.S.P.E.C.T.: The anti-bullying-leadership team, walk-the-walk, The Zone: the afterschool homework help center, and many community service projects. 

The home base for the P.R.I.D.E. program is our advisement time: 30 minutes at the end of each day.  The acronym P.R.I.D.E. stands for Plan for your week (Monday), Read (Tuesday), Improve your grades (Wednesday), Develop your character (Thursday), Enjoy your day (Friday).  Students are scheduled into advisements in groups of 12 – 14 students by grade level.  This allows for relationship and team building.  Advisements become small family groups that are respectful and responsible to each other. Although advisement is the heart of our program, character education is integrated into all aspects of our school: academics, athletics, clubs and extracurricular programs, the after school program. 

• Character Education Partnership

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