The purpose of this blog post is to highlight how The Virtues Project aligns with and/or enhances other educational initiatives, frameworks, philosophies, etc… currently being utilized in the field of education under the umbrella of school culture/climate. I am doing so by sharing my own personal thoughts, based on my experiences as an educator for 35 years, as well as an educational consultant for many of the organizations who lead this work. I invite you to join me in this conversation by sharing your perspectives as well.

My hope is that together we will support one another to have clarity and confidence moving forward and not be overwhelmed by initiative fatigue. The truth is, there is great need and room for all of us to look through a variety of lenses in creating schools that are socially, emotionally, physically, spiritually and intellectually safe for all students, staff, families and communities.

Brief Overview of The Virtues Project

The Virtues Project is a global grassroots movement that was founded over 30 years ago by Linda Kavelin-Popov, her husband, Dr. Dan Popov and her brother John Kavelin. Linda is psychiatric social worker, she designed teen suicide and violence prevention programs in Harlem, was a spiritual caregiver in hospice and is an author. Dan is a child psychologist, scholar of the world sacred traditions and was a senior scientist for NASA. John was a Disney Imagineer and art director. The founders created The Virtues Project in response to an epidemic of young people killing themselves and others due to boredom, a lack of meaning and purpose. Once they realize that it  was a spiritual issue, they researched all of the cultures, oral traditions and sacred text of the world. What they found that was common to all of humanity were the virtues, universal positive qualities of character.

Knowing that we are all born with all of the virtues in us in potential, the founders asked themselves how could they could awaken and strengthen them in our children. They came up with the 5 Strategies and self published The Family Virtues Guide. Oprah said of The Family Guide that, ”It is the instruction manual our kids didn’t come with.” The project is in over 100 countries, honored by the United Nations and endorsed by the Dalai Lama.

The Virtues Project is being used to inspire individuals to live more authentic, joyful lives, families to raise children of compassion and integrity, educators to create safe, caring and high performing learning communities, and leaders to inspire excellence, ethics and appreciation in the workplace. The 5 Strategies are as follows:

1. Speak the Language of Virtues

2. Recognize Teachable Moments

3. Set Clear Boundaries

4. Honor the Spirit

5. Offer Companioning:

I am passionate about the 5 Strategies of The Virtues Project because the project has transformed my life personally and professionally, as well as my family’s and tens of thousands of others whom I have had the honor of working with around the world over the past 14 years! As someone who has experienced my own traumas, and as a result had extremely low self-esteem, the virtues and the strategies have helped me to heal. I am on a lifelong journey of strengthening my virtues and social emotional competencies. I truly believe this project is trauma responsive having been created by therapists for healing. It has SEL and character at the foundation and it is culturally responsive, honoring the nobility of all people and is a universal restorative protocol. The project has guided me to a larger paradigm of restorative practices and opened my eyes and heart to the need for racial and social justice and healing. Within the 5 strategies of The Virtues Project, and the individual virtues themselves, I feel I have been given the wisdom I have been searching for my entire career to bring my whole self to my work and be able to honor the whole child/adult in all of the students and adults with whom I work.

Aligned Initiatives/Frameworks

Below I will give a brief overview of each initiative. Then I will compare The Virtues Project and the International Institute for Restorative Practices (IIRP) philosophies. Finally, at the end of this post are links to additional resources for digging deeper. I hope you will find this post meaningful and I welcome your thoughts. I know I will learn much from your perspective, wisdom and experience!

1. ASCD Whole Child

2. Social Emotional Learning (SEL)

3. Character Education

4. Trauma, Resilience and Mindfulness

5. Racial Justice, Equity and Cultural Competence

6. Restorative Practices

1.  ASCD Whole Child:  The ASCD Whole Child approach looks at students beyond the narrowly defined focus of academics and expands it to look at the social, emotional, physical, intellectual and spiritual domains of a child. ASCD’s six Whole Child Tenants; Healthy, Safe, Engaged, Supported, Challenged and Sustainable, each have 10 indicators that help educators, families, community members and policy makers can use to move from vision into sustainable action.

2. Social and Emotional Learning:  According to The Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL), “Social and emotional learning (SEL) is the process through which children and adults understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions.” They do this by teaching the 5 competencies of self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills and problem solving skills in a variety of ways in a variety of settings.

3. Character Education:  Character.org inspires, empowers and certifies schools, businesses and sports team who exemplify good character. Character.org says that, “character is the intentional effort of living out one’s core values and working on continuous growth through ethical and compassionate decision-making. Core values are an individual or group’s most significant, deeply held beliefs that serve as a guide for how we think, feel and what we do.” Below are the 11 Principles of Effective Character Education:

1. Defines, implements and embeds core values.

2. Defines character by including thinking, feeling, and doing.

3. Uses a comprehensive, intentional and proactive approach to develop character.

4. Creates a caring community.

5. Provides opportunities for moral action.

6. Provides meaningful, challenging learning in respectful ways that develops character and leads to success in life.

7. Fosters self-motivation

8. Creates an accountable learning community.

9. Creates shared moral leadership that sustains the character work.

10. Engages families and community members.

11. Assesses and adjusts the character initiative regularly.

4. Trauma, Resilience and Mindfulness:  Student behavior across the United States has become increasing challenging over the past few years. Educators are finally beginning to understand what psychologists and social workers have know for years, that trauma can have a huge impact on learning, behavior and overall health and wellbeing. In addition, when people work with others who have experienced trauma on an ongoing basis, they can experience vicarious or second hand trauma, as well as compassion fatigue. For more information and resources you may wish to read a previous blog I wrote about trauma. http://www.darafeldman.com/dear-compassionate-colleagues-what-do-you-know-about-trauma/

5. Racial Justice, Equity and Cultural Competence:  As a white women of privilege (not monetary privilege, but unearned privilege due to the fact that I was born Caucasian), this is the area of my greatest need and desire to grow and develop. I have learned a lot through my work at the University of Maryland’s School of Social Works’ Positive Schools Center from Dr. Wendy Shaia-Devereaux! I am also extremely grateful to my dear friend and fellow Master Facilitator, Dr. Geri Peak, and my passionate, justice loving daughter, Dani,  for their patient wisdom, experience and guidance!  In addition, I appreciate how the Office of Equity and Cultural Proficiency for Baltimore County Public Schools describes this important work: “The Department of Equity and Cultural Proficiency (ECP) partners with stakeholders to create instructional environments that support academic rigor, access cultural relevance and relationships that ignite the potential of each and every student as the norm. ECP works to build the capacity of leaders to create inclusive environments that honor every students ability, race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, socioeconomic status, language, and sexual orientation, thus ensuring every student is skilled and able to be globally competitive in a culturally rich society and macro economy.” Lastly, TeachingforChange.org has provided me with a lot of great resources and thought provoking professional development as well.

6. Restorative Practices and Restorative Justice:  The International Institute for Restorative Practices (IIRP) states that, “Restorative practices is an emerging social science that studies how to strengthen relationships between individuals as well as social connections within communities.” The IIRP teaches a restorative practices continuum going from informal practices to more formal practices. According to the IIRP, “the informal practices include affective statements that communicate people’s feelings, as well as affective questions that cause people to reflect on how their behavior has affected others. Impromptu restorative conferences, groups and circles are somewhat more structured but do not require the elaborate preparation needed for formal conferences. … Although a formal restorative process might have dramatic impact, informal practices have a cumulative impact because they are part of everyday life (McCold & Wachtel, 2001).”

Below is a brief and basic comparison of The Virtues Project and IIRP

Speaking the Language of Virtues vs. IIRP’s Affective Statements

Language has the power to inspire or to discourage. Using virtues to acknowledge, guide, correct and thank awakens the best within us.

Imagine that a student did well on an assignment. A traditional way to acknowledge the student might be to say, “Good job getting your work done well.” An affective statement from IIRP might sound like, “I feel proud of you when you do well.” A virtues acknowledgement from The Virtues Project might be, “I see your diligence in the way you took your time to carefully complete your assignment.” I believe that by using the virtue and the evidence, you are helping the student understand the success criteria that will help them be able to transfer that virtue to another scenario. It is helping the student build agency and not doing it to be praised and liked by the teacher.

If a student rushed through their assignment, traditionally a teacher might say, “I can see you rushed through this assignment, go back and redo it.” An IIRP affective response might be, “I am concerned that you rushed through your assignment.” This does not guide the student on what they could do to make things right. A virtues guidance or correction invites the student to their highest self while providing the expectation/success criteria, “Please be diligent and take your time to carefully check your work before turning in your assignment.”

Recognizing Teachable Moments vs. IIRP’s Suggested Affective Questions and Impromptu Conversations

Recognizing the virtues needed in daily challenges helps us to become lifelong learners open to the lessons of character.

When a student has a mistaken behavior, a teacher using the IIRP methodology might ask the following questions: What happened? What were you thinking at the time? What have you thought about since? Who have you harmed and how? How can you make things right?

These questions can be very meaningful questions. In addition, I think it is imperative to take the opportunity to help the student Recognize the Teachable Moment by also asking, “What virtue was missing or needed at the time?” By asking this question we can help the student strengthen the character quality that can help prevent the student from making the same mistake in the future. The virtue becomes a transferable skill that they can put into practice. Also, if the student does not know how to call on self-discipline, patience, determination, etc… then it is our responsibility to help them develop that character strength or social and emotional competence. As Linda Kavelin Popov says, “Recognizing the Teachable Moment helps turn stumbling blocks into stepping stones.”

Setting Clear Boundaries vs. IIRP’s Impromptu Conversations and Conferences

Setting Clear Boundaries Based on Restorative Justice: Boundaries based on respect and restorative justice create a climate of peace, cooperation and safety in our homes, schools and communities.

When there has been harm done, The IIRP suggests that reintegrative shame, focusing on the act, not the actor, as well as using the restorative questions will help the person who caused the harm understand how their behavior impacted others.   While I agree this can approach can be helpful, I also believe that we need to make sure that the boundaries are clearly established ahead of time, that people are treated as noble beings, that they are taught how to do things differently moving forward while also given the opportunity to make amends.

When students and adults have the opportunity to co-create the boundaries and the boundaries are clearly, consistently and justly reinforced on a regular basis, they help create a safe space. This is extremely important for young children and especially for children and adults who have experienced trauma.

When a boundary is crossed and leads to a consequence, the consequence should be fair and educative, helping the person learn how to do things differently in the future. Below is an example of how to set clear boundaries using The Virtues Project Framework.

1. Boundary: The virtue that needs to be practiced at this time.

2. Ground Rule: What that looks like in action.

3. Consequence: What happens if they don’t follow through. How they could practice that virtue now.

4. Amends: Opportunity to make things right and start afresh.

EXAMPLE: Boundary: Honesty

Ground Rules:

• Tell the truth the first time.

• Admit when we make a mistake.

• Ask for what we need and want.

Possible Natural/Logical Consequence

• People will not trust us.

• We won’t learn from our mistakes.

• We won’t get our needs met.

Possible Amends

• Admit the truth and explain why it was not told originally.

• Apologize and ask forgiveness.

• Tell the truth moving forward

Honoring the Spirit vs. IIRP’s Circles

Honoring the Spirit: We sustain our vision and purpose by integrating virtues into our activities, surroundings, celebrations and the arts.

The Virtues Project is based on all of the cultures, oral traditions and sacred text from around the world. Honoring the Spirit begins with respecting the dignity and worthiness of each person. It is a commitment to being culturally responsive, just and equitable by honoring, valuing and appreciating the inherent nobility of each person. It is also about joy, meaning and purpose in our lives. This strategy includes the circles that IIRP teaches as well as virtues picks, celebrating the arts, participating in service learning and other ways that connect us to ourselves and to each other.

The Companioning Process vs. IIRP’s Impromptu Conversations and Conferences

The Companioning Process: Being deeply present and listening with compassionate curiosity guides others to find clarity and to create their own solutions.

This process is a 7 step counseling technique that Linda developed when she was working as a spiritual caregiver in hospice. It is trauma responsive and restorative because you are creating a safe space for someone to be heard and allowing him or her the gift of coming up with their own solution. It is important that you first put on your virtues shield of compassion and detachment. Compassion so you can walk along with the person and detachment so you do not take on their issues and pain.

The 7 steps are as follows:

1.     Open the door by saying, “What’s happening?” (Never use the word “why”)

2.    Listen with receptive science.

3.    Ask cup emptying questions such as, “What is the hardest part.”

4.    Look for sensory cues, “What are those tears for?”

5.    Ask virtues reflection questions, “What virtue would help you?”

6.    Ask closure and integration questions, “What is clearer to you now?”

7.    End with a virtues acknowledgement, “I see your courage by honestly sharing what happened?”

I hope by now you can see for yourself how the 5 Strategies of The Virtues Project aligns with and /or enhances other initiatives in the space of school culture and climate. Below are additional resources you can explore if you wish to dig a little deeper.

I welcome your feedback, pushback, piggy backs and anything else you wish to share. I also trust you will use act with tact feedback knowing that this blog was written with positive intent and humility.  I look forward to learning from you!

As always, wishing you much joy, meaning, purpose and peace,

Dara

The Virtues Project in Education Resources

A variety of resources to get you started and help you deepen on your Virtues Project Journey

Whole Child

ASCD Whole Child homepage

This page has a variety of links to other resources including the WC assessment

ASCD WC Additional Resources

Whole School, Whole Child, Whole Community

Ideas and resources for the integrated approach

Whole Child Compact

Initial report from the Whole Child Commission.

Educating the Whole Child: Improving School Climate to Support Student Success

This brief reviews research demonstrating that student learning and development depend on affirming relationships operating within a positive school climate. It describes how such an environment can provide all children with a sense of safety and belonging by creating safe and culturally responsive classroom communities, connecting with families, teaching social-emotional skills, helping students learn to learn, and offering a multi-tiered system of supports.

SEL and Whole Child Education:  An Essential Partnership

Article by Dr. Maurice Elias talking about how Social Emotional Character Development (SECD) is at the heart of the Whole Child.

Social Emotional Learning (SEL)

A Nation at Hope

A recent report by the Aspen Institute and the National Commission on Social, Emotional and  Academic Development providing a clear and hopeful roadmap about social emotional learning and the Whole Child.

CASEL:  Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning

https://casel.org/A go to for research, policy, practice and collaboration

Oakland Unified School District’s SEL Initiative Website

Best Practices in SEL from WASA

Comprehensive framework from Washington Association of School Administrators

Three Signatures SEL Playbook

This playbook introduces some simple  ways to get started with social and emotional learning. It is designed to help users create safe, generous, equity centered, and productive learning spaces for adults and students.

How to Help Students Apply SEL to Their Real Life

A new movement, purpose-based learning organizations is connecting the principles and practices of SEL to what students do in the world and to the question, “What do I do with my life?” It’s developing the connective tissue between internal skills and external projects, future plans, and big life decisions.

Nashville Confronts SEL Resistance Head On

Ideas to get buy in from colleagues.

SEL Walkthrough Rubric

May want to create your own to align with your priorities and evaluation.

Pursuing Social and Emotional Development Through a Racial Equity Lens: A Call to Action

Both equity and social, emotional, and academic development are currently

receiving much-needed attention, but neither can fully succeed without recognizing strengths and addressing gaps in these complementary priorities.

Rather than being pursued as two separate bodies of work, the field needs to identify ways in which equity and social, emotional, and academic development can be mutually reinforcing.

School Connectedness: Strategies for Increasing Protective Factors among Youth

Strategies for increasing protective factors among youth.

Students Learn from People They Love

Article by David Brooks about putting relationship quality at the center of education.

Bringing the Science of Learning Into Classroom article and video from Edutopia

Great resources for helping educators understand trauma and the importance of relationships and developing SEL.  Might be very helpful for buy in.

Restorative Practices

Dara’s Getting Started with Restorative Practices

A variety of resources to get you started including whole district initiatives, lesson plans, videos and more.

Can Restorative Practices Improve School Climate and Curb Suspensions?

Final report by the RAND study of the IIRP’s Whole School Change Implementation of Restorative Practices in Pittsburgh Public Schools.

Creating and Sustaining a Positive and Communal School Climate: Contemporary Research, Present Obstacles, and Future Directions, National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice.

This report puts forward four recommendations for creating and sustaining a positive and communal school environment.

Character Education

Character.org

Leader in character education, a non-profit providing leadership, voice and resources to help individuals and groups along their character journey.  Great national yearly forum on character education.

Character Exchange

Based on Character.org’s 11 Principles of Effective Character Education, the Character Exchange is a network of teachers, school support staff, administrators and parents working together to bring positive changes to our schools and communities by advancing the principles that we know make them better places to learn and work.

School Safety Report from 2018

Highlights how character development and a culture of connectedness is the number one proactive approach to school safety.

Let It Ripple Science of Character Movie and Resources

Racial Justice, Equity and Cultural Competence

https://sites.google.com/site/rprjactionresearch/equity

Trauma, Resilience, Mindfulness Responsive Resources

Dear Compassionate Colleague:  What Do You Know About Trauma?

Like a PD on a page, this post gives you an overview of trauma, compassion fatigue, and ACES as well as resources to deepen your understanding, help yourself and support your students.

Why Mindfulness and How to Get Started: 

Resources to learn about what mindfulness is, why it is important and how to get started for you and your students.