Why Teach Social Skills and

Character Education As Part of

The Standardized Curriculum?

The answer to the above question can best be answered by answering the following question...

What do you want most for your children or students?

If you could wave a wand and bestow upon them gifts, talents, knowledge, and skills that you feel would be most helpful to them in life, what would they be?

• Health?
• Wealth?
• High Academic Achievement?
• Athletic Prowess?
• Artistic Excellence?
• Leadership Ability?

Or, would you often settle for......

• A little more cooperation and a little less contrariness,
• A little more respect and a little less rudeness,
• A little more responsibility and a little less carelessness, or
• A little more honesty and a little less disception?

Any and all of the above have their appeal and are certainly desirable. But none guarantee, nor even necessarily contribute to, a person's happiness or wellbeing. Consider this.....

Nothing so completely determines
one's happiness and well-being as one's choices.

But, the quality of our choices often leaves much to be desired. And as parents and teachers we fret a great deal about the choices our young people are making.

True, we lecture, encourage, warn, set rules, chastize and even punish, but all too often our efforts fall short. Why? Because we fail to give them the knowledge and tools they need to make good choices.

The Quality of One's Choices is Determined By Three Variables

		KNOWLEDGE
		DESIRES, AND
		THINKING SKILLS

Knowledge determines the range of choice options available to a person, but

Desire is the deciding factor in determining which options we choose. It provides the motivation to select and the will to execute the choices we make.

Unfortunately, desire often overrules knowledge. How else can we explain the melt-down so many people of intelligence and ability have when they become involved in activities they know can be hurtful to themselves and others?

To harness our desires and channel them into wholesome and productive channels requires that we possess the thinking skills necessary for critical reasoning and creative problem solving.

Thinking Skills are the tools required for making good choices. Without well developed Thinking Skills, knowledge is difficult to acquire and desire impossible to control.

Without well developed thinking skills how can a person distinguish between
good ideas and bad ideas or between good choices and bad choices?

For a person to be able to consistently make good choices, all three elements—the acquition of knowledge, the moderation or channeling desire into positive thoughts and actions, and the development of the thinking skills required to accomplish the other two—must all be fashioned to work together.

Not until this happens is a person able, in Benjamin Franklin's words, to "think rightly."

“. . . .as the happiness or real good of man consists in right action and right action cannot be produced without right opinion, it behooves, us above all things in this world to take care that our own opinions of things be according to the nature of things. The foundation of all virtue and happiness is thinking rightly.”

The above quote represents the underlying philosophy of the lessons contained in The Seven C's of Thinking Clearly and the Character Based Learning strategies employed by ChoiceSkills™, Inc. for teaching social skills and character education.

The Character Based Learning Approach
The "How" to lies in Character Based Learning. Character based learning simply integrates all three variables—the acquisition of useful knowledge, the development of thinking skills, and personal growth in the desire to both think and act rightly—into the same learning experience.

There are few reasons you can't, and many ways you can, help young people learn to moderate their desires and develop their thinking skills while teaching them math, English, science or any other subject.

All branches of useful learning provide rich and abundant opportunities for teaching social skills and character education lessons and for helping young people improve their thinking skills at the same time they are acquiring knowledge on virtually any subject.

Discover for yourself the powerful synergy of Character Based Learning strategies through activities and stories found in The Seven C's of Thinking Clearly. These literature rich lessons are highly relevant to choices children make on a daily basis. Fun and easy to prepare you will find opportunities for teaching social skills and character education lessons in a wide range of classroom and non-classroom settings. For more information on The Seven C's of Thinking Clearly, now available in both print and ebook editions, visit our catalog of products and services.

For more information on Character Based Learning I invite you to visit our page "About Chracter Based Learning" and sign-up for our free seven part mini-course.

ChoiceSkills Mission
The mission of ChoiceSkills™, Inc. is to provide you—parents, teachers, counselors, social workers, and youth leaders—with the Character Based Learning resources you need to help young people master these invaluable qualities.

Whether you teach in public school, home school or youth organizations; whether you teach social skills, character education, history, math, science or literature; whether you teach ordinary children, gifted children, or children with special needs; or whether you just like to sit around a fire and talk with your child about important things, you will find character based learning strategies invaluable in helping young people come to grips with the knowledge and skills they need to live happy and productive lives in a troubled world.