San Diego North CHARACTER COUNTS!

SERVING OUR COMMUNITY WITH INTEGRITY

Contact:
Nick Anastasopoulos, President

San Diego North CHARACTER COUNTS!
12463 Rancho Bernardo Dr. #283
San Diego, CA

858-775-9222
charactercounts@aonc.com
Non profit # 731735327

When hearing that an individual is contributing close to a million dollars to a tax funded institution, people are going to be curious.  Most of us are continually trying to avoid paying taxes and frequently seek and receive free government services.  Why would someone give money to an entity funded by public monies?

The motivation is two-fold.  First, I would like to give something back to my community that I believe would make an important and lasting impact.  I believe that life’s great secret is the fact that a successful life is not about getting.  It’s about giving.  The saying that “It is better to give than receive” is a profoundly true statement.  In giving this gift, I will receive continual satisfaction as I reflect on it and as I see the results of character education ripple through our community in the improved ethical climate that it engenders during the years ahead.

The second and more important motivation for the gift is to respond to the obvious decline of the moral fabric of our society.   In the 1800s, the French sociologist Alexis de Tocqueville observed that “America is great because America is good.  When it ceases to be good it will cease to be great.”  Newspaper headlines and surveys tell us we are ceasing to be good.  Daily the papers report about corporate scandals, pedophile priests and lax religious superiors, frequent hit and run car accidents that I don’t recall happening with today’s regularity years ago, violent crimes by youth, and more.  The Insurance Research Council claims that 33% say it is all right to exaggerate insurance claims under certain circumstances, a University of Virginia study determined that most people lie every day, and a 2002 nation-wide survey of 12,000 high school students reports that 74% admitted to cheating on an exam in the past year, 38% admitted stealing something from a store in the past 12 months, and 37% said they would be willing to lie to get a good job.  It is probably unnecessary to cite more examples as it must be obvious to most that we have a serious cultural problem. 

I believe a major reason for our ethical decline is our society’s lack of a consensual set of values.  Currently relativism reigns in communities and schools across the country.   Everyone’s values are seen as valid as the next person’s.  When there is no agreed upon moral framework, there is no clear way to distinguish between the values of Mother Teresa and Osama bin Laden.  In schools, a student’s moral reasoning, no matter how ill-informed or speciously reasoned, is considered appropriate or goes unchallenged.  There is a difference between right and wrong and we need to teach young people the distinction.  For example, rape, child abuse, torture, stealing, lying, and cheating are wrong.  Our children need to be taught that certain behaviors are wrong, equipped with the reasoning skills to determine why they are wrong, and schooled in an environment that reinforces good behavior.  Relativism and a reluctance to make moral judgments or the inability to do so lead to moral paralysis and the continual parade of scandals that make up so much of today’s headlines.

America’s schools used to teach students to be both smart and good.  Now the emphasis seems to be on smart and good has been neglected.  Texts in the nineteen hundreds, like McGuffey’s Reader that was used from first grade to sixth, taught students the importance of good character.  There were stories about the disobedient boy who drown and the honest orphan who was adopted.  Patriotic biographies emphasized the virtues of people like Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln.  It is just as important today to teach our children to be virtuous as it was in the 1800s.  Children do not automatically develop good character.  Proper values must be taught and they must be reinforced by teachers and in the community.  As adults, it is our duty to transmit enduring cultural values to young people.  Our forefathers and other successful societies throughout history have done so.  If we neglect to proactively teach the values of good character, children will look for their values elsewhere.  They will look to violent television programs and movies, misogynistic rap music, and media advertising that promotes personal consumption and selfishness.  Good character values have formed the backbone and the societal cement that, as Tocqueville observed, has made America great.  Another writer, in the Book of Proverbs, phrased it differently when he said “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” 

The Character Counts program in an anecdote to the relativism that cripples our country.  It is the nation’s largest character development organization and its approach and curricula are used in thousands of public school classrooms and sports programs across the country.  Character Counts is the umbrella organization for groups that have agreed to promote and practice the following six values that form the core of good character and a stable society: trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring, and citizenship.  Hundreds of service groups, school districts, municipalities, civic groups, and national organizations are Character Counts Coalition members.  Educational organizations include the National Education Association, American Association of Community Colleges, and American Association of School Administrators.  Service organizations include Little League Baseball, Camp Fire Boys and Girls, United Way, YMCA, American Red Cross, and hundreds of others (see www.charactercounts.org for a complete list.)

Character Counts is compatible with and would enhance our schools district’s Academic Honesty Policy and its commitment to promoting ethical behavior.  The six personal values that it advocates are nondenominational and nonpartisan and are values that all people can agree on regardless of their political or religious affiliation.  In fact, the legislation that made the third week of October annual national Character Counts Week was sponsored by five Republican senators and five Democratic senators.  All religious traditions in their creeds and practices are consistent with the six values that form the core of good character and what parent would not want their children to be trustworthy, respectful, responsible, fair, caring, and good citizens?

In school district after school district where Character Counts has been implemented, studies show the following results:
•    A decline in breaking into another’s property
•    A decline in the use of fake IDs
•    Stealing declined
•    The use of alcoholic beverages declined
•    Cheating on exams declined
•    Responding to an insult with physical force declined
•    Illegal drug use declined
•    Detention and suspension declined
•    Missing class without a legitimate excuse declined
•    Racial and ethnic conflict declined
•    Student behavior toward authority and others improved
Linda Jones, the director of Character Counts in the Dallas Independent School District, sums up the impact of CC succinctly with the following assessment: “The whole emotional atmosphere of the building changes.  It becomes a kinder, gentler place.”

Character Counts is a proven approach to help our students become better people, to improve the campus atmosphere and educational experience, and perhaps most important, to strengthen the necessary common cultural values that define us as a society.  I see no downside to implementing Character Counts in our schools and in funding it I can think of no better way to spend my money.


David Bender
Rancho Bernardo, California
dbender1@san.rr.com