set out them days ago to discuss teaching character in a world that is changed a whole lot since 1993. so it 30 years out from the book of virtues, compassion, loyalty, self-discipline, how are we doing 30 years later? well, i think we still need them. these are the virtues. you can make the argument we need them even more. the temptation now is even stronger amongst some parents, grandparents to say this as a whole new world, i do not know how to do this. but we can t do that, we cannot surrender that. we have all these polls to disconnect us for it was a screenshot of the anonymity of hiding behind them. the last few years of coveted people feeling taken out of their workplaces and their schools, their communities, their houses of worship. are there hopeful ways we can reconnect that you see these virtues can come back to life? i think they are. we are counting on their being
dear to his heart. he is here with atlanta with this new virtual reality game. it s called character playbook. it s really about teaching character tore these kids. what did you see in this program, demario, that was so important to you to get involved? well, when you think about the times that we re in, it s important to be able to make a good decision when you are faced with some type of adversity or facing a conflict. that s what this program is designed to do, to teach, argue, how to make good decisions. when they re faced with peer pressure and you know fights and conflicts in their schools, when they re faced with cyber bullying. how do you take a negative ap turn it into a positive? make a positive response? the program is pretty much a module that gives you options to say, what would you do in this situation? based on that situation, you will look at three different scenarios how it will play out. so you see the effective decisions, are you making high changes, the trajectory
we don t get that respect but we do it the right way. what s happening in college athletics which is terrible and you see this with hall of fame voting it s turning from a game about teaching character, about values to win at any cost, and that s wrong for america. and so i m proud of stanford the standard they re setting and that they re winning with that philosophy is incredible. it really is. notre dame also, you ve got to tip your hat to notre dame, a great school, a great academic tradition. and yeah, they lost the national championship to my alma mater, but guess what, man. they were number one at the end of the season. and academically, fantastic. incredible. i always say back in the 80s, i was an all-american. the older i get the better i was, so take a grain of salt with that. you played with knute rockne. the reality was, only a few schools even made me fill out an application. but notre dame had me come in
kuk seed paul tough confronts the issues at the heart of today s debate. he joins me from education nation. great to see you again. let s start with what we learned today that national s.a.t. reading scores for the class of 2012 have declined to a 40-year low. what is your diagnosis of the problem and how can your approach to teaching character character has a different definition in your analysis how might that help in this crisis? i think those s.a.t. scores are a big deal and it s important that they re falling as much as they are but in reality the skills that are at least as important as i.q., as important as what we measure on those standardized tests are character strengths and the educators and scientists that i m writing about are trying to define those character strengths and trying to draw attention to the way that they predict success for kids. how would you change the way
how to fail. i think that s kind of counterintuitive with us both with our kids and teachers and schools. but when schools don t give kids opportunity to learn how to fail productively, i think they deny them the opportunity to learn these character strengths. let s talk about where this is being applied, kip and riverdale, some of the examples here in the city? . yeah. there are these two schools in new york city that are collaborating on a new approach to teaching character. infinity is a charter middle school, serving a mostly low income population in west harlem. riverdale is one of the most exclusive private schools in the city and together they have developed this list of character strengths, working with them optimism, and at kip they have actually developed a character report card, no the calling it a character growth card, that evaluates kids on all seven of these character strengths four