Student Leadership 13
The Intentional Development of Character.

Our view of Leadership has a number of key foundations, last week we talked about Christ dependence and the intentional development of that understanding.

This week let’s address character, and again how this development must be intentional.

Surveys of young people in recent years have revealed a worrisome trend: an increasing number of young adults and teenagers are unhappy, depressed, and outright sad.[1]

There are multiple reasons for this, but also some common factors: unhealthy comparisons with others, a lack of focus on gratitude, increasing isolation and self-analysis, fears fanned by media, a sense of unworthiness, a lack of future hope.

These issues all focus on Identity, Meaning and Purpose. The very things that we can only fully realise in a relationship with Christ. Genuine character attributes will only have full meaning when we know of our redemption in Him.

However, every person is made in the image of God and thus, however dimly, reflect the attributes of their Creator. Our task is to bring those character attributes into the light, and encourage our students to exercise them with discipline and diligence, and in so doing, some of their unhappiness will be relieved.

We must continue to have intentional classroom cultures that develop “Habits of Hope.”

These will include gratitude, forgiveness, humility, service, generosity, kindness, mercy, compassion, integrity – all of these things “look outside of ourselves” they are things that we exercise in community. They are things that we contribute. Amazingly, we see the joy and happiness of our students increase as we encourage their engagement with others.

The Senior School at Pacific Hills Christian School focus especially on a GROWTH model, connecting specific character attributes, as part of their ‘Leadership through Learning’ development:

G Gratitude Thankful for the privilege to learn
R Respect Respect for the learning process
O Ownership Valuing and owning learning
W Wisdom Seeking wisdom in all learning
T Tenacity  Persisting when challenges come
H Humility Valuing humility in all things

This development of good character attributes is not a separate program that we need to run; it is the culture of our classrooms and school community that we intentionally develop, every moment of every day.

“…it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich” Dietrich Bonhoeffer

 

Blessings
Brian

 

 

[1] Eg Twenge, Cooper, Binau, Joiner & Duffy, 2019. “Age, Period and Cohort Trends in Mood Disorders and Suicide-Related Outcomes,” Journal of Abnormal Psychology, vol. 128, No.3