Teaching Students Life Skills through Character Education

By : Janet Peterson One of the most important things a child can learn, both at home and at school, is how to develop character. Helping to create strong character skills in children helps to ensure success in every facet of their adult life. Recorded history shows that for centuries, societies have acknowledged the need for general education to also develop character in children and young people. Horace Mann, one of the most well-known reformers of education practices in the mid-1800s, advocated that character development in American schools is as important as academic pursuits.

The concept of "it takes a village to raise a child" is never more important than in the context of developing character. Character education has always been a responsibility shared among parents, teachers, and members of the community. Character education teaches children how to live and work together as families, friends, and neighbors, and teaches them how important it is to be a contributing and responsible citizen of the nation and the world. Developing character at a young age helps students to care about and develop core values such as respect, civic awareness, fairness and justice, and responsibility for self and others.

Today's United States Congress publicly acknowledged the importance of character education, when it authorized the Partnerships in Character Education Program in 1994. In 2001, Congress renewed that emphasis with the No Child Left Behind Act. One of the six stated goals of the Department of Education is to "promote strong character and citizenship among our nation's youth." Obviously our society recognizes the importance of character education and has focused planning and resources to help address that need in American schools.

In public schools, character education must be developed using a comprehensive approach that provides multiple opportunities for students to understand, develop, and discuss positive social behavior. To successfully implement a successful character education program, schools should concentrate on several important goals:

Bring people together to gather ideas and develop a strategy. Include staff, parents, students, and interested members of the community in helping to identify and define the character elements that should be most strongly emphasized in any character development program. Having a strong partnership between parents and teachers is vital to the success of the program, so that students hear a consistent message from all people involved in their lives.

Give students examples to follow. Train teachers and other school staff on how to integrate character education into other areas of the school and learning experiences. Provide opportunities for adults to serve as role models of exemplary character traits and social behavior.

Be committed. Take a leadership role in ensuring that the entire community is involved in designing and implementing a character development program. Everyone must work together and remain committed to making character education an integral part of all educational agendas.

The federal government has expanded support for character education during the past decade, and schools across the country have implemented character education in a variety of ways. There is a wealth of information and support available to educators, parents, and members of the community that can help them to learn the importance of helping students to develop firm character ideals at a young age. Not only is character education vital to a student's success in school, it is vital to the accomplishment of future goals in life, and essentially to the future success of our nation.

Test Anxiety in Students

Are you feeling anxious about your impending test next week? Here are some tips that will help you in coping with stress and anxiety. Test anxiety is something that almost every person experiences during his or her student life. In other words, it can be said that feeling anxious during tests or exams is a part and parcel of a student's life. Little anxiety actually helps one in concentrating and working hard for the exams. However, if students spend all their time in feeling anxious, lot of valuable study time would be lost.

In this competitive world, test and exam time cause a lot of tension and nervousness in students. For some, anxiety is like a tonic to work hard, while for others it may be the root cause for poor performance, leading to academic failure, psychological disorder and poor self-confidence.

Test anxiety is a kind of performance anxiety that is psychological in nature, where a person feels nervous before, during and after the exam. Anxiety is actually a normal way of reacting to stressful situations. It is a way in which our body tries to cope up with the oncoming stress. When we face certain stressful situations, a hormone called adrenaline is released in our body, which in turn produces certain physical symptoms that help us during difficult situations.

Some of the physical changes an anxious person experiences are stomach ache, fever, nauseousness, giddiness, headache, rapid heartbeat, perspiration, shivering, etc. They may also experience certain emotional problems like crying or getting frustrated easily. Many people blank out and feel that they are not able to remember what they had studied thoroughly.

Causes of Test Anxiety

Some students are anxious by nature and easily get nervous when they face a stressful situation. Negative thoughts creep into the minds of such students during tests, even if they have prepared well. The fear that one will forget everything he has studied or the fear of going through a tough question paper makes him nervous. When someone indulges in negative thinking, it is likely that one forgets what he or she has studied.

Anxiety also affects people who are perfectionists and achieve high scores in every test. Such students pressurize themselves and are always tensed to gain perfect scores. This may cause anxiety as even one wrong answer can make them feel that they have done badly in the test.

Test anxiety is most common in people who have not studied for the whole academic year, but still want to score excellent marks. When one starts preparing at the last minute, he has lots to study in a very stipulated time span. This again leads to anxiety, as they get tensed if they would be able to complete everything and remember everything they studied. The thought of studying lots in a stipulated time span would make them sick with anxiety. This kind of behavior reflects poor study habits, lack of organization and poor time management. Not preparing in advance causes low self-confidence and fear of failure.

Tips to Overcome Anxiety

One of the most important factors for avoiding test anxiety is to prepare well in advance. Studying regularly for few hours everyday, from the beginning of the year helps in increasing the confidence of students.

If students are not able to cope with anxiety or nervousness, they could talk to their teachers, student counselors, parents or friends. Parents should also avoid pressurizing their kids to do well. Create a peaceful and relaxing atmosphere at home, so that your children can study without any tension. Another important point that arises here is neither the students nor the parents should compare the children with their other classmates and friends.

Do not forget to eat and sleep properly. Many times due to anxiety students avoid sleep and starve themselves. They should sleep for at least 6-7 hours a day and eat nutritious and healthy food. Exercising regularly is also important, as is talking to friends and socializing.

Plan your studies well. Chart out a time-table and take proper breaks between studying. Along with the study time, allot time to relax and indulge in hobbies or what you love to do. Practicing simple breathing techniques will also help reducing stress.

Students should remember that tests are just a part of life and not the end of it. While it is important to gain good scores in tests, it is not the most important thing in life. Learning to control negative thoughts and coping with nervousness and stress will not only help them to do well in school tests, but also in their future life and career. By : Deepa Kartha

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