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The 5th Annual Character Education Conference
Greater Expectations: Putting the Pieces Together
The fifth annual Character Education Conference was held on Wednesday,
March 19, 2003 at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Sacramento. The
daylong event was preceded by a Pre-Conference workshop entitled
“The Four C’s: Conflict, Change, Character & the
Curriculum”; held on March 18 at the California Department
of Education, also in Sacramento.
The purpose of this year’s conference was to
promote the effective and research proven use of character education
in California schools. The California Partnership for Character
Education (CPCE) supports this conference and the “Linking
Student Achievement with Character” project to achieve its
goal of developing and implementing a systematic approach for K-12
schools. CPCE efforts compliment the core academic school and community
learning culture. This approach also seeks to align its work with
national and state character education and academic improvement
initiatives. The project’s character education and good citizenship
activities teach and/or reinforce basic principles and values that
are fundamental to the well being of a democratic society.
Members of the education, government and business
communities attended this year’s conference. The Center for
Youth Citizenship (CYC) was pleased to host Dr. William Damon, author
and Professor at Stanford University, as this year’s keynote
speaker. Featured panelists in the discussion entitled, For
the Good of the Whole: Doing Business Differently, included
Barbara Kerr, California Teachers Association; Ken Larson, Hewlett
Packard; Stephanie Lee, California State Board of Education; and
John Russo, League of California Cities and the City of Oakland.
Workshop sessions held through out the day included Community
Connections for Character Education, Conflict and Change Skills
for Schools, Blending Reading Achievement and Student Citizenship,
and many others. Bettye Saxon of SBC along with CYC Executive Director,
Joseph Maloney, concluded the day with door prizes from many generous
donors.
Thoughts from our Conference:
“The road to success begins with strong character.”
–Anne McKinney, Office of the U.S. Secretary of Education,
Region IX
“Citizenship and behavior and the way children think does
effect student achievement. Education as whole does include more
than reading, writing and math.”
-Barbara Kerr, California Teacher’s Association
“The character and ethics that we carry as public officials
depends almost exclusively on the character and ethics that we had
with us before we entered government. Most of that came from teachers
who taught us history…and the books we read long before we
came to public service.”
-John Russo, League of California Cities & City of Oakland
“Students want a logical and sound reasoning for why they
should act in a certain way with respect to requirements; why they
should use honesty; why they should use consideration; why they
should be compassionate.”
-Stephanie Lee, California State Board of Education
“(Character Education) is fundamental to our success as
a society and
our success as a business.”
-Ken Larsen, Hewlett Packard
“We need to take a positive approach. Too much of character
education is do this, don’t do that; it’s based on a
lot of rules and restrictions. Of course, young people need limits
but in order to really understand limits and in order to behave
properly, they need positive reasons that inspire them…”
-William Damon, Stanford University
2003 Character Education Conference Sponsors
California Department of Education
California Reading Lions Project Center
California Teacher’s Association
e.Republic
Sacramento County Office of Education
U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District
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