Redesigning schools for effective character education through leadership: The case of PRIMED Institute and vLACE

ABSTRACT

This paper presents two leadership training programs focused on redesigning schools to promote student character development and advocates for their suitability to promote character education in diverse cultural contexts. This is especially relevant for researchers, practitioners, and policy makers who are searching for replicable interventions to promote character development in schools, particularly in those countries where the character education movement has not arrived yet. It begins with the theoretical framework that lays the groundwork for these kinds of leadership programs. Second, it describes the PRIMED Institute in Character Education (PICE) and the virtual/video-based Leadership Academy in Character Education (vLACE) programs. Finally, it presents seven arguments in favor of these programs responding to the needs of schools in many different countries.

KEYWORDS:

• Character education
• leadership studies
• PRIMED model for character education
• school culture
• school climate

Introduction

‘Schools are perfectly designed for the results we are getting. If we don’t like the results, we need to redesign schools.’

Paul Houston, former Executive Director of the American Association for School Administrators.

Over the past few decades, educators around the world have become increasingly interested in implementing character education in schools and universities, and the pace of this expansion seems to be accelerating. The main reason is that society and educational institutions are increasingly aware that the decisive challenges of our present and future can only be met by citizens with good character (Dabdoub, 2021).

There is a wide variety of programs, vendors, consultants, and frameworks for educators to choose from in the search to integrate character education in schools, including approaches ranging from a small set of classroom lessons to a broad school-wide re-design (Berkowitz et al., 2008). The latter include approaches that propose generating a type of community in which the development of good character is promoted (e.g., Berger, 2003; Berkowitz, 2021; Elbot & Fulton, 2007; Lickona, 2004; Novick et al., 2002; Watts et al., 2021). Most of these approaches affirm that generating these communities is only possible if leaders are prepared to lead this change, so they often recommend leadership training as an initial requirement.

Two prominent cases of this kind of training are the leadership programs of the Center for Character and Citizenship at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, the PRIMED Institute in Character Education (PICE) and the Leadership Academy in Character Education (LACE), held annually since 2001 and 1998, respectively. These programs have helped well over 1,000 leaders redesign their schools to generate a school community that promotes the development of good character.

While such leadership programs can be found in the United States, it is more difficult to find similar initiatives in other countries. The question then arises as to whether these two programs can be replicated, translated and delivered in other countries to help school leaders achieve the learning and development necessary to meet the character education challenges of their particular contexts. To answer it, the intervention development project Character education leadership program for Mexican public schools, funded by the Templeton World Charity Foundation (2023a), has translated, implemented, and assessed the outcomes of PICE and vLACE in Guadalajara, Mexico, from May 2020 to April 2023.

This paper presents the research work developed by the team of this project to choose PICE and vLACE as a suitable option to respond to the challenges of character education in Mexico (Naval et al., 2018) and probably in many other countries. We believe the description of this training methodology is especially relevant to researchers, practitioners, and policy makers who are looking for replicable interventions to promote character development in the schools of their communities, particularly in those countries where the character education movement has not arrived nor produced a meaningful change. Being part of a large-funded research project, this paper will focus on the description of the intervention and future reports will cover outcome and assessment data.

First, the paper presents the theoretical framework that lays the groundwork for this intervention. Second, it explains PICE and vLACE programs. Finally, it presents seven arguments in favor of these programs responding to the needs of schools in diverse cultural contexts.

Theoretical framework: Backwards design

Good character development

When designing character development interventions or projects, it is helpful to start with the end: ‘the idea is that any effective character education initiative needs to start with a clear understanding of what we are trying to impact’ (Berkowitz, 2021, p. 11). It is beyond the scope of this paper to develop a comprehensive definition of character or character education, especially because it is a complex and broad concept that includes many and diverse perspectives (Arthur et al., 2016; Baehr, 2017; Berkowitz, 2021; The Jubilee Centre for Character & Virtues, 2017; Lickona, 1991; Naval et al., 2015).

Some of these models and theories may seem complex, distant, and even alien to what educators really seek to achieve on a day-to-day basis. However, they address simple and concrete issues that are at the heart of the call to educate. Inspired by these models and theories, the first column of Table 1 proposes a set of traits that can be identified in a person with good character. Clearly, the set does not exhaust every possible good character trait. These traits were chosen because they help to ground what it means to have good character and connect it to the nobler goals of education.

Table 1. School culture that promotes/undermines good character development.

Traits of people with goodcharacter	Cultural aspects that promote each character trait	Cultural aspects that undermine each character trait
They care about the people around them. They are not indifferent to anyone being left behind.	People care about each other. There is time, spaces and activities foreseen to meet and share.	Each person cares only for himself/herself and has neither the time nor the strength to care for others.
They are not dominated by haste or by the many things that need to be done. They are serene, listen, reflect, study, transmit peace.	There is time for reading, reflection and conversation. Haste and busyness do not rule the school.	There is no time to read, to talk, to reflect. There are too many things to do and too much haste.
They speak their mind, combining courage with prudence. They do not remain silent or indifferent when facing injustice.	Everything can be discussed, everyone’s voice is heard, and decisions can be made collaboratively with the stakeholders.	Teachers and students are afraid to say what they think if they disagree with their superiors. There is just an appearance of peace.
Their life purpose is aligned with what they do. They seek to contribute to the common good and find satisfaction in it.	Absenteeism is not a problem. People go to work because they enjoy their job and are satisfied with the good they do.	Students and staff do the minimum essential work. They miss school at the slightest opportunity to justify it.
They know that their opinions and solutions are not the only ones, nor necessarily the best. They are open to learn from and search with others.	Teachers and/or staff usually collaborate with each other. They work together, open to learn from each other.	Teachers and/or staff do not collaborate or discuss the solutions for their challenges. Everyone works individually.
They are kind. It is a pleasure to spend time with them. They are nice, endearing, modest, easy to deal with.	The veteran students serve the new students. They take care of them and help them.	Bullying is practiced by students and teachers alike: ‘You either kill or get killed’.
Doing their job well is a fundamental part of their life. They are open to learning so they can do it better.	Academic integrity is valued at the school. Students admire a job well done by their peers.	It is well seen to cheat and get away with it. It is something admired by students.
Their motivations stem from their identity and integrity. They do not need to be watched to comply. They can be trusted.	The motivations that drive people come from their own identity and integrity. They are and feel trusted.	People do things on the basis of threats, punishments, rewards or recognition. Surveillance environment.

Educators often ask themselves what is necessary to foster this kind of character development in students. There is a multitude of programs, activities, methodologies, and curricula that seek to impact character development. These may include service learning, community service, peer mentoring, tutoring, class meetings, family and/or community participation, restorative practices, character/moral/virtue courses, or social-emotional learning activities, among others. Although some of these practices are included in most character education approaches and initiatives, none of them are strictly necessary. The main evidence supporting this statement is that studies and meta-studies of what works in character education show schools that succeed without including all these practices (Berkowitz et al., 2017, 2008). Likewise, none of these practices are found without exception in every school that succeeds in promoting character development. It is important to ponder these facts to avoid misleading considerations, such as ‘character education is not working because we are not doing enough things’, or that ‘doing more things equals better character education’, as if it depended on an accumulation of practices. While this may help in some cases, it is not necessary nor is it the most essential matter. Another question is whether implementing a certain number of practices in a school would be sufficient to achieve character development in students. Again, research shows that any number of practices implemented is not the determining factor for character development (Berkowitz et al., 2017, 2008).

Culture, climate or ethos as a necessary factor

Then, what is necessary to promote character development in schools? One of the most relevant and necessary factors to promote character development in schools is belonging to and engaging in a certain type of community, in a good community (Berger, 2003; Novick et al., 2002; Power et al., 1989; Vessels, 1998). In the same way that we speak of the character of a person, we could also speak of the character of a community. In this sense, the character and moral education literature often invite us to think of the character of a school as its culture, climate, or ethos. Even though culture, climate, and ethos are not precisely the same, they have many things in common and it is hard to define what is exclusive in each one of them (Glover & Coleman, 2005). They all focus on a comprehensive approach of the school, considering the purpose, mission or values that drive the community, the quality of the relationships among its members, the motivations promoted among the stakeholders, the autonomy conceded to every person, or the sense of belonging, among other things.

Again, it is not easy to comprehensively describe a school culture, climate or ethos that nourishes good character development. Following the good character traits described in the first column of Table 1, the second column shows the correspondent characteristics of a good school culture (climate or ethos) that promotes the development of each character trait, while the third column shows the characteristics of a bad school culture that undermines their development. This influence of the culture in the development of character is usually referred to as character caught (The Jubilee Centre for Character & Virtues, 2017).

When planting a seed, one tries to create around it the ideal conditions in which that seed can flourish, such as adequate humidity, soil, and sunlight, among others. Similarly, creating a school culture that promotes good character development is to provide the best possible conditions in which a person can flourish. It is not all that it takes, and there may be some extraordinary cases of children that flourish in a bad culture against all odds. However, this does not detract from the fact that culture is a highly influential factor and should be considered a necessary element in a school community that wishes to promote good character development in a strategic and intentional way.

The proposed school culture to promote good character development might seem more focused on the character of teachers and staff, somehow neglecting the character of students. This is not incompatible, but the contrary. As Thomas Lickona usually says in his presentations, ‘the single most powerful tool you have to impact a student’s character is your own character’. Any investment in the character of teachers and staff is a direct investment in students' character (Berkowitz, 2021; Lickona, 1991). Schools should seek first and foremost to ensure that their culture, climate or ethos meets the necessary conditions for their teachers to cultivate a good character because, without this, it is almost impossible to promote good character in students. As Parker Palmer says: ‘we teach who we are’ (2007, p. 25).

School culture, climate, or ethos can be considered in two ways: either as an outcome or as means to achieve certain outcomes (Solomon et al., 2000). On one hand, the practices and the way in which they are implemented in a school generate a culture, climate, or ethos (outcome of practices). On the other hand, the culture, climate, or ethos of a school community has a deep impact on the character development of its members, especially those who have recently joined the community (means to outcomes). In this sense, generating this school culture, climate, or ethos could be considered sufficient to promote a significant impact in the character development of students.

Design principles approach

If this is a necessary and sometimes sufficient factor to promote character development, how can this culture, climate or ethos be generated in a school? There are several approaches on how to generate this type of community, including specific directions and resources for practitioners (Berger, 2003; Elbot & Fulton, 2007; Novick et al., 2002). One way to conceive how this type of community can be generated is by principles or design principles, ideas focused more on how and why things should be done, than on what things should be done. These design principles can inspire the way in which everything is organized, distributed, and implemented in a school community in order to cultivate a school culture that nourishes the character development of students. Two prominent principle-based approaches in this regard are the PRIMED model for character education (Berkowitz, 2021) and the 11 Principles of effective character education (Nast et al., 2020).

For example, the PRIMED model is an acronym for six design principles for school improvement (Prioritization, Relationships, Intrinsic motivation, Modeling, Empowerment, and Developmental pedagogy) that integrate 42 character education effective practices for schools identified in studies, reviews, and meta-analyses from the last quarter of a century (Berkowitz, 2011b; M. W. Berkowitz & Bier, In press; Berkowitz et al., 2017). Effective means that these practices are supported by scientific evidence, including statistical tests of the significance of their impact in character development. Rather than specific practices or strategies, these principles are six reminders of what should be considered to design each practice and strategy to effectively impact character development. This is a brief description of each one of them.

• Prioritization: Making character education an authentic and salient priority in the mission, vision, policy and practice of the school.

• Relationships: Intentionally and strategically nurturing healthy relationships within and across all stakeholder groups.

• Intrinsic motivation: Nurturing the internalization of values to be a person of good character and avoiding extrinsic motivators.

• Modeling: All adults and other role models embody and exemplify the character they want to develop in students.

• Empowerment: Creating a culture and structures that empower all stakeholders, inviting their voices, listening and considering them, so everyone has the possibility to make a significant difference.

• Developmental pedagogy: Having a developmental perspective, educating in ways that support long-term learning and character development.

Instead of focusing on doing extraordinary things for character, the PRIMED model approach is centered on redesigning the ordinary things that are already done in schools, providing them with intentionality and strategy to promote character development. For example, the mission and values of a school can be guided by technology, languages, competencies, and soft-skills, or they could value first and foremost educating just citizens who will care for the common good (prioritization). Teachers can be expected to have strictly academic interactions with their students, or they can be expected to cultivate caring relationships with them (relationships). Discipline can be motivated by conditioning behavior with public recognition, prizes, or awards, or it can be promoted by having peer-discussions that help students interiorize the intrinsic value of good behaviour (intrinsic motivation). A curriculum can include the study of relevant historic figures and their role shaping history, but it can also incorporate a moral analysis of their actions and consequences (modeling). Faculty meetings can be a context in which teachers listen passively and disinterestedly to someone telling them what to do, or they can invite teachers to share their views on how to promote student well-being, actively collaborating and engaging in creating a new plan (empowerment). A discipline committee can install cameras all around school to immediately control the behavior of children, or they can take the time to foster a climate of trust so that children can learn to do the right thing even when no one is watching (developmental pedagogy).

Almost every school will have a mission and values, transmit expectations to teachers, motivate students, elaborate curricula, organize faculty meetings, or have discipline committees: these are all ordinary things. Depending on how they are designed, they may or may not effectively impact the good character development of students.

Leadership as the key piece

How can the design of a school community be vivified by these principles to generate a culture that promotes character development? Many authors argue that the key to beginning and sustaining this process of change is leadership (Berkowitz, 2011a; De Roche & Williams, 1998; Hicks, 2018; Novick et al., 2002). Teachers may know these principles and design their lessons so that the culture of their classrooms impacts character development (e.g., Berger, 2003; Urban, 2008). However, teachers do not usually make decisions that can inform the design of an entire school: this is the expected role and responsibility of leaders. For this reason, a certain type of leadership is necessary to inspire and direct the collaborative design of schools to succeed in generating a culture that promotes the character development of students (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Backwards design for character development.

In this sense, overall school re-design can be a more effective character education approach than a more circumscribed curriculum or specific and limited set of initiatives, much as Kohlberg, in attempting to stimulate the development of moral reasoning, preferred the comprehensive Just Community School intervention (Power, 1988) over the classroom level moral dilemma discussion approach (Colby et al., 1977).

The final question is how leaders can be prepared to re-design their schools and lead this cultural change for character development. The following section describes two leadership training initiatives from the Center for Character and Citizenship at the University of Missouri-St. Louis oriented towards this goal: PICE and vLACE.

PRIMED Institute in Character Education

The PRIMED Institute in Character Education (PICE) is a five-day immersion experience in character education for school leadership teams to learn and collaborate in a climate of trust, reflecting and discussing about how their schools or other educational organizations can become places where character development is promoted in a strategic and intentional way. This program was developed by Marvin W. Berkowitz, co-director of the Center for Character and Citizenship, and his colleagues. PICE has three main goals.

First, PICE is an intensive immersion in learning about the fundamentals of effective character education. The theoretical and practical foundation presented in the program is based on the PRIMED model, previously described. In addition to explaining the contemporary educational theories that connect to the PRIMED model, the PICE facilitator spends most of the time presenting examples of how these principles can inform the design of ordinary school practices and strategies. On the other hand, much of the time is spent having the participants themselves share with each other their ideas about how they might apply these principles in their schools.

Second, PICE intentionally promotes team building through experiential learning. Implementing a change of this magnitude, which directly affects the school’s culture, requires a united team eager to take on this ambitious challenge. Many school principals attend PICE with their closest leadership team (around a total of 3 to 6 members per team). However, it is also possible for school leadership teams to attend without their principal. During PICE, attendees have the opportunity to bond with other members of their team, as well as with other teams attending the program, and share many hours of conversation and relationship-building activities. To create this climate of interaction and team building, the size of the PICE cohort should ideally be between 15 and 30 attendees.

Finally, all participants develop an action plan for the upcoming school year. Any deep and constructive organizational transformation requires several years of work. The plan developed these days can serve to open the way and introduce the perspective of character education in a school.

PICE has been held annually at the University of Missouri-St. Louis since 2001. It has also been delivered in Colombia, Taiwan, Mexico, and Spain, with requests for it in the future from Angola, Peru, Brazil, Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. It has successfully been implemented in English, Spanish, and Mandarin (with the help of a translator). The international demand for this program suggests that these design principles respond to the particular necessities and challenges of schools in diverse countries, both at the public and private level, even though no assessment study has been published yet. Three research projects funded by the Templeton World Charity Foundation (2023a, 2023b, 2023c) are analyzing data gathered in Mexico and Colombia to assess the effectiveness of PICE.

vLACE

Before describing vLACE, the Leadership Academy in Character Education (LACE) should be described. LACE is a complex and comprehensive year-long professional development experience for school leaders with two main goals. First, LACE is intended to foment a personal and professional transformation of the leaders themselves, because there can be no significant change in schools without the leaders beginning to cultivate the character they want to see in the rest of their community (Berkowitz, 2021). Secondly, LACE equips leaders with a broad range of knowledge necessary to design, implement and assess initiatives that make their schools true learning communities, in which character development is an authentic priority.

The curriculum of LACE consists of two major elements. First, there is a typically year-long series of monthly full-day highly-interactive workshops led by nationally and internationally-recognized experts in the field of character education. During these workshops, school leaders can get to know each other, interact, and discuss their challenges and experiences, building a community of practice to develop the kind of leadership that transforms schools for the better (Wenger, 1999). As a bonus, in a relatively small cohort (about 30), they get to spend a day with the expert presenters, often getting individual consultation.

Secondly, it includes a curriculum of monthly assigned written reflections, partially sequenced to build upon each other, that collectively comprise a site-specific long-term plan to transform the culture of each leader’s school to promote effective character education. With a few self-study exceptions, these assignments are expected to be done collaboratively with a character education leadership team created in one of the early assignments. It is expected that this team will meet each month to read, reflect on, and respond to these assignments. Most importantly, these are intended to serve as a form of mentoring by the leaders of LACE; hence, each assignment receives detailed written feedback from the LACE directors.

Since 1998, LACE has helped well over 1,000 school leaders to promote character education in their schools. Many of these leaders have won independent recognition for excellence in character education. Based on a rigorous set of criteria inspired in the 11 Principles of Effective Character Education, Character.org annually recognizes public and private schools and school districts as models of effective character education since 1998, naming them National Schools of Character. A significant success fact is that from 2008 to 2021, 104 out of the total 720 National Schools of Character are located in the greater St. Louis region and are led by LACE graduates, representing 14% of all National Schools of Character in that period. Also, Berkowitz received the Good Work Award from the Association of Moral Education in 2010 for organizing LACE.

Finally, vLACE (virtual/video-based Leadership Academy in Character Education) is a video-enhanced version of LACE designed to re-create the experience of this program for groups where it is not practical to host each of the LACE presenters live. Funded by the HTC Education Foundation for use in Taiwan, vLACE is comprised of nine live workshops delivered by a trained facilitator that presents the models and approaches of nine experts in the character education field (Berger, 2003; Berkowitz, 2021; Elbot & Fulton, 2007; Glaze, 2017; Lickona, 2004; Novick et al., 2002; Taulbert, 2006; Urban, 2008; Vincent et al., 2013) through short videos, interactive dynamics, readings, and guided reflections. Out of 80 hours of vLACE workshops, 15 hours are comprised of videos excerpted from LACE experts delivering their workshops in St. Louis. The facilitator does not have to be a remarkable expert in the character education field; however, this role needs a basic knowledge of character education and an expertise on how to lead the interactive workshops. vLACE also includes the full monthly written curriculum of reflections and mentoring feedback given by an expert in the field. The vLACE program has been successfully implemented in Mexico (2021–2022) and Spain (2022–2023).

Why PICE and vLACE

As previously mentioned, no studies analyzing the effectiveness of these programs have been published yet. However, there are current research projects studying the effectiveness of PICE and vLACE collecting pre-test and post-test data in Mexico and Colombia that will be published soon (Templeton World Charity Foundation, 2023a, 2023b, 2023c).

This section presents seven arguments in favor of these programs responding to the needs of schools in diverse cultural contexts, arguments that motivated the projects previously cited to study their effectiveness. Future studies will make it possible to verify whether they are capable of succeeding in their goals. The arguments presented in favor of these programs are that they: (1) focus on what can be changed; (2) begin with the leaders; (3) model the culture for character development; (4) avoid general recipes; (5) do not require doing more things, (6) focus on long-term planning; and (7) have self-sustainable capacity.

Focus on what can be changed

At the beginning of PICE and vLACE, principals are usually asked what needs to change for their schools to improve. They often answer they need better students, better teachers, better families, better facilities, or even a better government. These perspectives are quite frustrating for them because, most likely, these things will not change any moment soon, nor do they have the ability to significantly influence them. Most principals will have the same students, teachers, families, facilities, and government (or even worse ones). If they continue to focus on changing what is not up to them, they will end up worn out, or become indifferent or cynical to any hope that education will improve.

PICE and vLACE do not focus on things that cannot be changed, or whose change is beyond the reach of educators in schools. In contrast, they propose to focus on those aspects whose change does depend on the leaders and the people who are part of their community. Redesigning the way in which a school operates, redesigning its practices and strategies, is something that can be promoted and achieved by most school leaders in any cultural setting.

Begin with the leaders

Following the backwards design proposed in the first section of the paper, PICE and vLACE focus on the leaders to begin and sustain the redesign of schools that will generate a culture that will effectively impact the character development of students (see Table 1). The first thing that principals can change or improve to promote a better culture in their schools is their own character and leadership style. If leaders are not the character they want to see in their teachers, staff, and students, they will likely fail to promote good character development with any message, curriculum, program or strategy. As Ralph W. Emerson is frequently claimed to have said, ‘your actions speak so loud I can’t hear what you say’.

Principals are generally unaware of how they can improve their character or what defects they should correct, and they can be reticent to change the way they lead or may not even be aware that their leadership should improve. Because of the position they hold, it is often difficult for members of their school community to tell them what aspects of their character they need to take care of or fix. There are character flaws that are difficult to tell a friend, let alone a boss: lack of humility, not listening, distrust, perfectionism, paternalism, coercion, not being able to forgive, wanting to control everything, etc.

PICE and vLACE address this concern not by dictating to leaders how they should be, but by helping them become more aware of how they actually are, reflect on how they would like to be, and encouraging them to begin this journey. Being part of an interactive peer-community of principals is helpful in this regard because people are usually more open to listen, observe, learn and receive advice from peers than from employees. Also, both programs present the Servant Leadership model (Greenleaf, 2002) and invite participants to integrate it in their way of being/leading. For example, vLACE includes in its assignment a self-assessment of eight servant leadership virtues (empowerment, standing back, accountability, forgiveness, courage, authenticity, humility, and stewardship), a model called CViL, also from the Center for Character and Citizenship (Bier, 2021). A following assignment invites principals to conduct a survey (Van Dierendonck & Nuijten, 2011) with their staff assessing them on these eight virtues. Then they can reflect on the differences between their self-assessment and the assessment made by their staff, considering steps to improve their leadership.

Model the culture for character development

PICE and vLACE use readings, conversations, reflections, videos, teamwork, and other activities to accomplish their goals. However, the most significant means they use is to generate with the participant school leaders the type of community (culture, climate, ethos) that they could generate upon returning to their schools. The design of these programs responds entirely to the proposed principles of school redesign. In this sense, participating in an edition of PICE or vLACE is a living experience of the kind of culture that could be generated in schools. What is done, how it is done, why it is done, or the character of the program leaders aims to be a living example of what they can do, how they can do it, why they can do it, and who they can be when they go back to their schools. For example: planning activities so that everyone can get to know each other; authentically listening to and respecting different opinions; setting aside time for silence and reflection; not imposing important decisions or leaving them for some other time, but encouraging all to search collaboratively and decide as a community. It is not only a program that includes theory and practice: it is also the direct experience of those practices and exposure to the modeling of them.

Avoid general recipes

Several educational programs indicate in detail what needs to be done, such as: deliver a new curriculum or set of lessons, conduct a series of activities, or implement a teacher training course. All these initiatives undoubtedly have a positive side, but not all of them work for all schools, or do not have the same impact, or they are useful, but only for a certain period of time. This is because the circumstances of each school are unique and changing, and there is no general solution for every school, nor for every time. Perhaps more importantly, they often miss the deep work of adult development and culture change.

PICE and vLACE share the conviction that there is no one program or curriculum for character education that will work in every school, nor that it will work indefinitely. Each school has its own problems, resources, and challenges, and what needs to be done there to transform its culture is a particular solution, and that solution must be flexible enough to adapt to a rapidly changing world. Instead of proposing general and somewhat rigid solutions, these programs advocate for particular and flexible plans. For this reason, it is less effective to train leaders in a specific-fixed approach, than to help them develop what it takes to lead effectively in their own circumstances: assessing the climate of their schools, discerning which program or approach is needed at that time, being nimble enough to adapt when circumstances change (e.g., the pandemic), or being exemplary in leading their community. Instead of telling leaders what to do, it is more effective and sustainable to focus on helping them develop what is needed to be able to discern what their community needs and being able to provide it. Principals usually know their schools better than anyone else, or have a uniquely advantaged position to get to know the most relevant aspects of their community.

For these reasons, vLACE offers nine different perspectives, rather than providing a single view of character education. These approaches offer principals a wider variety of resources and perspectives that better equip them to design a plan tailored to the necessities and challenges of their schools on their own character journey. Similarly, PICE presents six abstract design principles, showing that each can be manifested in the design of practices and strategies in a wide variety of ways, giving them the opportunity to shape their own way of integrating these principles. Finally, both PICE and vLACE offer principals many hours of conversation and collaborative work with other school leadership teams, providing the opportunity to learn from and be inspired by alternative experiences in their own cultural context.

Not require doing more things

Principals often fear that character education is one more thing they will have to add to the never-ending list of things they have to do in their schools. Some often use the expression: ‘my plate is full; I don’t have room for anything else’. However, throughout PICE and vLACE leaders are invited to consider that character education is not another thing on their plate. Paraphrasing many leaders in this field, character education should not be another thing added to the plate, rather it is the plate that sustains everything else in schools. The essence of promoting character development does not consist of doing more things, but redesigning the ordinary elements of schools. This is convenient because the implementation of extraordinary initiatives usually requires time and resources that schools lack, while the ordinary things will be done anyway and, intentionally or not, will have an impact on student development. In this regard, you cannot not educate character: to a greater or lesser degree, everything in schools impacts the character of children, whether it is intended or not. Additionally, it is not something that will compete with or withdraw resources from academics. Several studies show that schools integrating character education through this redesign approach ultimately achieve better academic results (Berkowitz, 2011b; M. Berkowitz & Bier, 2007).

Focus on long-term planning

Based on the experience gathered by the Center for Character and Citizenship team in delivering these leadership programs annually for almost 25 years (Berkowitz, 2011a) and on the stories of principals who have undertaken this cultural change in their schools (Berkowitz et al., 2012), a pattern can be inferred to propose an approximate 5-year theory of change (see Figure 2), articulating specific goals and actions for each year. There is no significant study supporting this theory of change yet, except for the testimonies of principals who have gone through these programs. However, the Character education leadership program for Mexican public schools project is collecting data since 2021 (year 1) in order to test whether or not this theory represents the actual evolution of the participating schools.

Figure 2. Theory of change: Creating a community for effective character education.

Both PICE and vLACE put great emphasis on convincing leaders that the cultural change needed to promote character development in a school is more like a marathon than a 100-meter race. The experience of previous principals who have achieved this cultural change shows that it is more effective to spend enough time on their own personal transformation, rethinking their school design, and respecting the time needed for the rest of their staff to buy-in this change, than to rush things to achieve results as soon as possible. Depending on their circumstances, some schools might take only three years to make this change, while others in more challenging conditions may take up to seven years. In any case, this is not an issue of weeks or months, it is a matter of years, and PICE and vLACE help school leadership teams to design a long-term flexible and adaptable plan for this period of transition.

Have self-sustainable capacity

If character education is to be promoted in other countries, it is necessary to develop interventions that do not require a large investment to replicate and that are designed to be self-sustainable. In the long term, it is unrealistic that character education thrives based on generous donations from foundations or research projects. It is better to generate sustainable initiatives that can be integrated into the ordinary context of each community and culture.

Organizing a PICE and/or vLACE cohort in a country requires a relatively accessible investment. PICE requires to hire a certified expert to deliver the training, which can be found at the Center for Character and Citizenship in the United States, The University of Navarra in Spain, or Coschool in Colombia. In the case of vLACE, three requirements are needed to implement this program in another country: (1) translation of the texts used in the workshop’s activities and the subtitles of the videos; (2) training a facilitator to lead the workshops; and (3) an expert who can review and give feedback on the participants’ written assignments. The texts and subtitles are already available in English and Spanish, and translation to Mandarin has begun, and are relatively easy and inexpensive to translate into another language. Furthermore, for PICE, PRIMED for Character Education (Berkowitz, 2021) is available in English, Spanish, and Mandarin, and many of the PICE materials are already translated or subtitled into Spanish and Mandarin, thanks to the University of Navarra and the HTC Education Foundation. It is also easy to train a facilitator for the role of vLACE facilitator, either in person or online, by the teams at the Center for Character and Citizenship or the University of Navarra. However, the necessary expertise to do mentoring and give feedback to the vLACE assignments requires substantially more training. This service could potentially be outsourced to one of the experts at the Center for Character and Citizenship or the University of Navarra, as was done in the Mexican vLACE edition.

One successful example achieving self-sustainability is the Liderazgo en Educación del Carácter initiative at the University of Navarra (2023), which has managed to organize both programs in Spain without any financial support other than the tuition fees. Also, a project already underway funded by the Templeton World Charity Foundation (2023b) and led by the organization Coschool in Colombia includes designing and implementing a training program for people who want to prepare to lead PICE as part of the Coschool team. This new training program will help many people to be able to deliver PICE, translating it into their language if necessary to make it even more accessible for educators from a logistic and economic perspective.

Another possible way to make these programs sustainable is the creation of a community of practice (Wenger, 1999). The bonds nurtured in these workshops usually generate personal and professional relationships that overcome the duration of PICE and vLACE. The nature of these programs invites the creation of a community in which school leaders continue to share their experiences, challenges, and difficulties, collaborating and learning from each other, both in live reunions and through social media platforms. It is very likely that being actively involved in this community will help some leaders to develop in a few years the necessary expertise to facilitate vLACE, deliver expert feedback, or even deliver PICE with supplementary training. In fact, a high percentage of the experts who give feedback on these assignments today are individuals who have completed LACE training and continued to collaborate as part of this professional community. This way, PICE and vLACE have good prospects of autonomy and sustainability after a few years of transition.

Conclusion

To make the world a better place, we need to focus on educating better citizens. Schools are a vital source for shaping and instilling human goodness in individuals. The kind of community that is created in these centers has a crucial role in achieving this goal. However, designing and creating this kind of community heavily depends on the leadership within schools. Therefore, leadership training is a critical strategy in this process. This paper is an attempt to demonstrate how programs such as PICE and vLACE can serve as a catalyst to promote effective character education and leadership development in schools, thus contributing to the formation of better citizens and a better world.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Templeton World Charity Foundation under Grant [0510].

Notes on contributors

Juan P. Dabdoub

Juan P. Dabdoub is Lecturer at the School of Education and Psychology of the Universidad de Navarra, where he defended his doctoral dissertation in 2019. He is member of the Education, Citizenship, and Character Research Group since 2015, Secretary of the Association of Moral Education since 2021, and Director of the Leadership in Character Education program at University of Navarra. His lines of research focus on the theory and practice of character education, educational leadership, and the design, implementation, and assessment of interventions that promote character development.

Daniela Salgado

Daniela Salgado is Dean of the School of Pedagogy and Psychology at Universidad Panamericana, Guadalajara, México. She collaborated for almost six years in the Secretariat of Education of Querétaro in Mexico, in the design and teaching of formative programs (ethics, civic and philosophical subjects) for teachers, parents, and students, particularly in Public Secondary Schools in the Department of Education in Values and Social Promotion. Her research lines are character education, moral education, social and family pedagogy and educational leadership. She led the project Character education leadership program for Mexican public schools, financed by the Templeton World Charity Foundation.

Aurora Bernal

Aurora Bernal is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Theory and Methods of Educational and Psychological Research and member of the Education, Citizenship and Character research group at University of Navarra. She has a Ph.D. in Pedagogy on Character education and publications on this topic. Lines of research: Moral education, Character education, Social education, and Family education. She is participating in the Project Character education leadership program for Mexican public schools.

Marvin W. Berkowitz

Marvin W. Berkowitz is the first Sanford N. McDonnell Endowed Professor of Character Education and co-Director of the Center for Character & Citizenship at the University of Missouri-St. Louis since 1998. His research focuses on character education, moral development, and educational leadership. He is founder and co-editor of the Journal of Character Education and founder of the Center for Addiction and Behavioral Health Research in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Aitor R. Salaverría

Aitor R. Salaverría is a doctoral student in the School of Education and Psychology at the University of Navarra, working on a dissertation aimed to research and promote character development in higher education residential communities. He was the Educational Director of the Colegio Mayor Belagua (University of Navarra) until 2021, where he has developed his professional activity for the last 10 years. He is a collaborator of the Education, Citizenship and Character Research Group at the University of Navarra and Secretary of the Leadership Program for Character Education at the University of Navarra since 2022.