One of the things I did this semester was teach Character Building to 11th and 12th grade student at our model school. From being one of approximately 17 different subjects the students are required to take in a week, to being the only class where students do not receive a grade, to being added to the hectic schedule one week before school started, this class was set up for disaster. There was no curriculum, no teacher to teach the class, and not even a uniform definition of what character was and how it is developed. Long story short, many of my teammates here heard me complain (I mean, vent) about how I felt like nothing I was teaching was getting through.

Not to toot my own horn, but I was very proud of the curriculum I ended up developing for the class. One Indonesian (who helped me with translating the curriculum into Indonesian) actually asked me to send my notes to her because she really liked it. Another teacher asked if she could use this curriculum in her class.

So, what was the curriculum? In this class, I defined character. Then I defined 14 different character traits (love, kindness/generosity, wholeness, gratitude, repentance/forgiveness, self-control, courage, gentleness, humility/submission, faithfulness/perseverance, joy, peace, patience, and goodness/ integrity). Then I contrasted this definition with what these character traits were not. For example, for love, it is not simply warm, fuzzy feelings. Then I illustrated these different character traits from a Hollywood movie. Then I gave 1 example of when Jesus demonstrated this character trait. The students were then tasked with picking the character trait that they felt was the hardest for them to exhibit. For the duration of the semester, they researched this character trait. They found one person in their life who exhibited this trait and one person who did not. Then they did this same assignment four more times looking in the news, in media, in literature, and in the Bible. Then they had to tell me how Jesus exemplified this trait on the cross. Finally, after having a semester’s worth of research on this character trait, I dared the students to actually put their trait into practice.

No matter how great I felt about this curriculum or how great others thought it was, I was met with resistance all semester. From being late to class, to not showing up to class, to not doing the homework, to sleeping in class, to doing science homework in class, the students made me feel like a complete failure.

I guess God has a sense of humour. He takes our best work and says that it’s “nice.” But he takes our heart and our effort, and He uses it to transform people. At the end of the semester, one student said, “We came into this semester and saw this class as the easy class. This was the class we could rest and relax in and even play around in. But now after studying character, I realize this is actually the hardest class. This is the only class, which affects me every moment of my day. And on my own, I have no hope of achieving the kind of character you taught in class. I never heard character taught like that. But I also know that Jesus will help me with this if I let him.”
Another student chose to work on self-control. Most of the students used this as an excuse to have better time management before finals. But this student said that he chose to give up pornography. And he said that it changed his life. Another student chose love and generosity. And throughout the day, she actively sought to find a way to bless her mom. One teacher came up to me and said that I had gotten deeper with the students in 1 semester than she had in years. I’m glad God can use our failures.

I guess I broke the cardinal rules of posting: keep it short and show pictures. May God bless you for getting to the end of this post.

Teacher Wren from Mustard Seed