CHARACTER EDUCATION
Visual Art Kits

By Kathleen Thompson and Rachel Ross
K-9

Eleven individually packaged kits, each one focusing on a specific character trait.

• Respect for Authority
• Empathy, Compassion, Kindness
• Equality, Tolerance, Issues of Race
• Courage
• Work Ethic, Cooperation at Work
• Children’s Work Roles
• Family Responsibility and Commitment
• Friendship
• Respect for the Natural Environment
• Community, Service Learning
• Heroes, Virtue in Action

Program Description

Designed as a resource, the Character Education Visual Art Kits offer a series of model lessons that enable both classroom teachers and art specialists to concurrently teach critical thinking skills, art appreciation, and character education. The ultimate goal of the program is to change students’ undesirable behaviors and attitudes and reinforce their positive ones. Students are encouraged to value and practice the virtues or character education traits studied. Because the goal is change, the virtues chosen for the program are those that many people agree upon.

Use of the Kits

The materials from the kits may be incorporated into a broader curriculum in several ways. The character traits to be taught were selected from lists drawn up by various private and public entities that promote character education; these amount to an unofficial consensus. The 11 teaching units or kits evolved by grouping 30-plus traits from the national models examined into natural sets.

Character Education and Art

What today is called character education is the age-old process of teaching young people to know, to love and to do good. In school, we believe this is achieved through intentional instruction. Art has always been a tool for transferring values and as such is a natural for teaching character education.

Each kit includes:

• 5 Fine Art Reproductions 18" x 22 3/4" (45.8 cm x 56.5 cm)
• A Teacher’s Guide
• A plastic storage porfolio