CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT EDUCATION

PRESENTATION ON THE ESSENTIAL BENEFITS OF CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT EDUCATION FOR STUDENTS IN AFRICA

TO MAKE A GOOD PERSON, EMPHASIZE HIS CHARACTER MORE THAN HIS SKILL & MANAGEMENT COMPETENCE

HELLO THERE• My name is Iwobe

Kingsley – founder/lead consultant – Iwobe Character Literacy center; I am a character development expert. • That is me…• And that is my

teacher and mentor..Dr S.R Covey

WHAT IS THE ESSENCE OF THIS PRESENTATION

• This presentation is designed to create a deep awareness of the importance of character education in our academic program and our learning curriculums in schools

WHAT IS CHARACTER EDUCATION• Character education is that educational

program and academic curriculum designed to empower students and learners – teenagers and adults alike with the self awareness that will inspire the capacity for effective personal judgment, choices and decisions... Base on the values of sound moral principles…• No matter how much we guide our children,

instruct them, discipline them or pampam them, what they would turn out to be and to experience tomorrow in their own life will be 100% a function of the choices and decisions based on their perception and judgment of life

WHAT DOES CHARACTER EDUCATION TEACH?

• Character education teaches the ethics and dynamics of human effectiveness thereby helping learners understand the deep intricate dimensions to the higher values of life such as the freedom of choice in developing our attitude of responsibility, integrity as against malpractices, character as against corruption etc and as how their own choices make or mar their life.

WHY CHARACTER EDUCATION• Character education is a right brain

development learning program that develops the mind situated in the right brain hemisphere. It develops the mind while other academic subjects which are all left brain functional knowledge program that develops the intellect which is resided in the left brain.

• Character education empowers the learner to come to know him or herself in a more meaningful way – her strength, life dimensions and empower therefrom to answer the higher questions of life – responsibility/influence & Leadership which are all the ultimate fruits of it.

• Real leadership knowledge and development comes only by character education – you wanna create leaders – in its real sense, teach them character education. It is illusionary and a misnomer to try to raise leaders without the basic knowledge that makes them leaders – character. Skill and management can’t make leaders – only good managers and technical men, only character knowledge can make leaders.• To help create a balance development program – in which both aspect

of the brain is simultaneously developed. It might surprise you to hear that we are in a left brain dominant society and that is why we are lacking in the areas of technology and creation of witty inventions that has the capacity to move man kind to higher levels of advancement; while we are stock on consumption.• By character education, students become learner driven, they

understand their real strength and becomes motivated to exercise it.

THE HUMAN DEVELOPMENT KNOWLEDGE DIMENSIONS• Thru the study of the human brain dominance

theory, you come to understand how the structure of the brain works, its composition and the knowledge that they function by/on to developed.• Something that many of us don’t learn in school is

that the human brain is divided into two halves – the right and the left brain Both halves have valuable treasures that holds different knowledge capacities:• The left brain holds the intellect of man and it is a

function of skill and management knowledge of our academic program.• The right brains holds the mind and it is a function

of the knowledge of character/leadership and moral awareness.

• You must understand that as Africans, we are a left brain dominant society because our knowledge development program – is 95% skill and management with little or no emphasis on character education. That means we have highly developed intelligence quotient but a mind that is so underdeveloped. Same reason we tend not to understand the higher values of life like: • Honesty in business pays more than

sharp practices• It takes a coward to be a cultist or a

thief and it takes courage to exercise integrity and moral values.• A strong man avoids fight; a weak man

wants to fight to prove a point.

THE KEY TO DEVELOPING OUR MIND IS A CONSISTENT KNOWLEDGE OF CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT EDUCATION THAT TEACHES US THE ETHICS AND DYNAMICS OF OUR OWN INDIVIDUAL EFFECTIVE DURING PERSONAL JUDGMENT, CHOICES AND DECISION MAKING.

QUALITY EDUCATION:• Quality education is a

function of the content of character development curriculum that is involved in the learning program of a students and how much impacts it makes on that child through dedicated teaching,

• In the human dimension and as it concerns our life and growth, quality is 100% the content of your character as an individual. Character – which is who and what we are - is the yardstick for determining the quality of a man’s life. So also our education, without character education, there is really no such thing as quality education.

• Many people assume quality education is a function of expensive tuition schools with facilities such as ICT, laboratories, nice clean environment…these are good but they are learning support factors not what makes quality knowledge development possible – the learning curriculum is.

QUALITY EDUCATION• Skill develops our hands,

management develops our business approach – together they help us survive; but character is who we are and what makes us effective in rendering the skill and business as it relates to coexistence in an interdependent reality which we cannot but accept as all we got. • So quality education is not in view

until our academic program is heavily imbued with character development education to help the learner/students understand the most intricate dimensions to life and living.

WHAT INTELLECTUAL SUBJECTS OFFER YOU• Intellectual knowledge is good but they

are not able to help us gain the capacity to do the most needful in life – become leaders of ourselves and others effectively; they are not able to help us Answer the higher questions of life. • Maths – understand how to play

around figures not relationship not endue us with honesty virtue• English teaches you British language

not communication morals for sustenance of relationship

• Geography teaches the earth composition not your basic life support factors• Commerce teaches you social

business environment not the higher values that helps it thrive like honesty and hardwork• Biology help you understand

the human anatomy and not the character you need to answer the higher questions of life.

•Chemistry will grant you understanding of the chemical components in life but not how to sustain relationships within all phases of our lives.•Physic helps us with the

awareness of metals and the dynamics involved around us but not how to make the right choices and decisions of life.

• Social-studies tells us about our environment and the relationships within but not how we can be effective personally and interpersonally within.• Citizenship Education:

teaches about the nations, governance, rights and duties of a social member of a community but not how to develop and channel your emotional intelligence to make you a better person.

• Character education on the other hand meets all of these knowledge empowerment for self development that intellectual subjects are not designed to give. Helps learners identify their purpose at an early age, understand their true values, become aware of their potentials, and exact the ability for effective personal judgment, choices and decisions.

CHILDREN PARENTS AND CHARACTER EDUCATION• The old conception is that:

Character is for parents to instil on their wards. And to this end folks argue that only parents can teach character. So when a child lacks the capacity to be a good person, both teachers and society blames the parents; perhaps we should ask ourselves how many of us parents grew up with the right character awareness…coming up? That’s by the way.

• But if we understand what character really means, and how it is suppose to play out in our lives, what it is supposed to help us achieve, then we understand that an average parents lack the ability to instil character values.• Now take note: Parents train

their children within three contexts: the context of safety, acceptable social conduct and financial success as an adult.

• Even thou it helps a great lot, The character of a child isn’t developed by advisory sections such as: • Come back home on or before

6pm• When you wake up in the

morning say “good morning to ur seniors”• Wash the dishes and clean the

house every morning before school• Read your book as often as

possible so you pass with good grades

• Because they have limited capacity to caution the teenage student against negative peer influences such as smoking, gang/occult activities, dirty addictive habits and negative social influences because of wide range of acceptance these vices have gotten from the society.

• All of these advises will help the child play in a safe environment, create the perception of a well brought up child and possibly be financially successful when he come of age but all through his life will be vulnerable to the lures and influences of peers, social distractions, malpractices, addictive and demoralizing habits and struggle to know who he really is – and in most cases will never ever know like most of us do.

• Many of us don’t know who we really are. If you can’t assess your potentials, achieve your greatest desires, or see that true dream come true or don’t even have a dream at all, sorry, you haven’t discovered who you are. Much like it is when we find people who don’t know their purpose – and are tossed here and there by life’s demand

• Character development education is meant to empower a child to make effective personal judgment, choices and decisions because by natures standard, only him will have to determine ultimately what his or her life turns out to be tomorrow. • No matter the influence of the parents or the

society, it will take the consent and will of the individual child to be influenced. • This capacity for effective personal judgment

choices and decision comes from a deep awareness of self thru the knowledge of the ethics and dynamics of human effectiveness which can be thought as an academic curriculum and it is what this book is all about.

• Parents can’t teach children character, they don’t have the technical understanding. They can’t always be with their wards. The society holds more influence on a child than the parents do. • Advises tells the child what to do

without the deep understanding of why he should do it.• Character education helps the child

understand why he should do it and inspires him therefrom to live out the higher values learnt.

CHARACTER, LEADERSHIP, CORRUPTION AND THE SOCIETY• We must understand that a the

knowledge we promote shows where our values lie. And also, a society that knows nothing or do not value character knowledge will have corruption as its dominant value. • Just in case you don’t know: character

is the opposite of corruption. That corruption is the dominant value in our systems shows how infinitesimal our value for character has become.

• Leadership will remain illussional and simply unrealistic in Africa until we speak more of character when trying to teach leadership. Leadership is the end fruit of character – want to train leaders, teach character/talk character/emphasize character strength and you will find leaders emerge. • Forget all you think you know about

leadership based on the popular literatures you have read, leadership isn’t in Africa because we have no value for the basis for it – character; and in this case I might have to say that character is the expression of moral principles of life – the living of it.

• It’s a myth to call and expects our youths and generations up coming “leaders of tomorrow” while training them with skill and management knowledge and subordinating the knowledge leadership requires to grow out from them to chance and parental guidance. • Its time to change the

course of things.

• Integrate character education into the whole learning levels of the social academic program total to foster leadership emergence amongst those we call future leaders.• Integrate character education to

combat the hydra headed values of corruption in our society desecrating all aspect of our youthful life.• Integrate character development

education to foster the development of the minds of Africans for creativity and ingenuity and possibility of witty inventions

WHAT CHARACTER EDUCATION WILL DO FOR NIGERIA AND AFRICA • Character edu will help

create a balance knowledge society – where both the mind and intellect of the scholars are developed.• It will spur creativity in the

continent because a developed mind is that mind via which creative and witty inventions can be gotten from.

• It is the most effective means of eroding the values of corruption as learners will think differently from the corrupt oriented norm.• It will foster the consciousness and

emergence of true leadership which is 100% a function of character strength and moral content.• It will help fight the wave of the

immorality sweeping across the globe with reckless ignominy and foster the possibility of sound moral judgment and choices and decisions amongst our youths and teenagers individually.

• Only by it can we actually claim to be raising future leaders.• It will help our students to

become learner driving and individuals with the requisite foundation for true leadership• And more more

CAN CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT EDUCATION BE TAUGHT IN SCHOOLS?Yes…at all levels.The basic aim of character education is to inspire the knowledge of selfawareness through the teaching of the ethics and dynamics of individual effectiveness in line with the basic princiles of life so that learners appreciate the need to live in harmony with them. So that their basic perception of life is not totally affected by social ills and vices around them especially for teenagers. So that they are able to make effective personal judgment choices and decisions.

Teachers can do this by using the materials – Character Development Education for Students. Based on the concept of ignorance, peer acceptance, social definition of success and other misnomer that has become some of our value systems, students needs to be guided aright in personal decision making and this far exceeds parental advices and instructions which is mostly taking with levity by their wards. It involved deep and deliberate teaching of lifes dynamics and demands.

By character edu, learners are opportune to learn the uncommon dimensions to personal development. Get the material today – its available online on your favourite ebook stores and in soft book cover format. Produced by Partridge Africa Publishing www.partridgepublishing.com/africa and Authored by Myself – Iwobe S. Kingsley – Africa foremost Character Educationist - +234 8090284837…

THANK YOU….