The Hidden Curriculum

The Hidden Curriculum. There is nothing more important in a classroom.

Kids want to feel safe, happy and wanted in their environment. Research shows that test scores improve when kids are happy. This year, I decided that it was important that I teach explicit lessons in Character Education. My kids and I have discussions about real life issues, we read books about people with good character, we learn words such as perseverance, to describe peoples' actions.

For the first 3 months of school, I taught character lessons at least 3 times a week. The lessons slowly became shorter or more infrequent because I was using that time to teach other curricular topics. But...It doesn't matter. The community in my classroom is built, and where I still do lessons, the goal is to build upon what we already have, not to change it or to convince them to be good people. They already understand that (as much as 3rd graders can). Character building is integrated in everything that I do in my classroom. I don't have any bullying problems in my class. In fact, most kids go out of their way to show good character. They point out when their friends have good character or not-so-good character. They write about it. It seeps through every lesson and discussion we have.

Amazing. It is my passionate belief that Character Education be part of the curriculum.