The Expressway to Good Character

Can having good character be simple?

For 35 years it was my business to build or rebuild the good character of my students. For the last 17 years of that time I was the principal of a school and had the deciding power of exactly how my staff and I would do that. But the available curricula I encountered at the national level were moralizing, boring, preachy, or overly complex- and as we tried them out, we discovered they were ineffective.

Finally, one day in the second to last year of my career, I designed the character square based on the four words I had most often used while redirecting the young people in my care, their families, my staff, and myself.

Immediately there were many ways to use this character square.

• I encouraged my students to use it like a sieve to determine a course of action. They should only do a thing if it were honest, kind, fair, AND brave. Two out of four, three out of four, wasn’t good enough. Good character is a high standard and requires all four traits to be present to qualify your character.
• We could look at a conflict occurring in our class and quickly ask which of the four traits was missing or barely there. Immediately we’d know the remedy was to increase what was in short supply so all four cylinders were again in operation.
• We could look at the square as if it were a mirror and see which of the traits was barely apparent or boldly present in our conduct.
• We could hold the same square up to the people we admired and note that these traits were ripe and abundant in their example.

The light bulbs started turning on. My students easily grasped- many for the first time- what the term “having good character” really meant. Even better they began to hone-in on their missing elements and round out their character repertoire.

It is amazing to hear a fifth grader spontaneously discuss his need to become more honest, and then watch him rebuild that area of his life. With the character square close at hand, we had that joy! Today, I offer you this simple device. But don’t be fooled. The device is simple, the work is not.

If you want the gold in this mine, you must dig. Roll up your sleeves and do the work of looking into your personal relationship with these four words. Forget the reputation you may have in the eyes of others and tap into the truth you know about your personal character, who you are when no one else is looking.

What is your relationship to being honest?

“Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.” Thomas Jefferson

• This trait is the starting point of good character.
• See every lie as the theft of another person’s power to decide how to respond
• Sheltering people from the truth ultimately weakens them
• Relationships without honesty are facades—empty shells that sap strength of one or more of the participants who prop up the false front; instead of being an expensive waste of energy, be the human version of a three-dimensional brick house
• Keeping track of untruths is emotionally taxing- and long-term it is distancing
• Draw up Honesty like clean, cool water from the well to satisfy yourself and others
• Imagine trying to get accurate results in a laboratory without having a clean petri dish to start the next experiment. Don’t let dishonesty contaminate your social relationships.
• Begin by being honest with ourselves. Nelson Mandela’s wisdom: “As I have said, the first thing is to be honest with yourself. You can never have an impact on society if you have not changed yourself. Great peacemakers are all people of integrity, of honesty, but humility.”

 “The first step is to be honest, and then to be noble.” Winston Churchill

What is your relationship to being Fair?

“Fairness is man’s ability to rise above his prejudices.” – Wes Fessler

• Justice preserves sanity and stability in families, friendships, and society.
• You are responsible for what you allow or condone, even if your only action was silence.
• Fairness is often complicated and requires viewing things from multiple perspectives.
• Adopt a standard similar to the FCC’s Fairness Doctrine for anyone broadcasting over public airwaves: “present controversial subjects of public importance from multiple points of view”
• Practice the Golden Rule by adjusting yourself to either treat others or yourself better.

“Being good is easy, what is difficult is being just.” – Victor Hugo 

What is your relationship to being Brave?

“A brave arm makes a short sword long.”

• Courage enhances whatever resources you are working with
• You mature emotionally by taking millions of tiny brave steps upwards.
• Bravery involves feeling the fear and taking action anyways.
• To learn/grow you must survive the experience of disequilibrium (the mild to severe imbalance brought on by having what you thought you knew challenged). Pay this price!

“A coward dies a thousand times; the hero dies but once.”

What is your relationship to being Kind?

“Kindness is never wasted.” Aesop

• Nice and kind are sometimes worlds apart, then give preference to being “kind”.
• True kindness is full-bodied and right-hearted
• Don’t accept substitutes! Real kindness is inclusive, compassionate, often costly, and often inconvenient.
• Kindness is intertwined with honesty
• Until your kindness is universal, it is corrosive to those who don’t qualify to receive it.
• Your kindness must include you!

“Kindness is the language the blind can see and the deaf can hear.” Mark Twain

Developing genuinely good character requires taking time to look in the mirror and the willingness to see the truths about your relationship to these four traits. No matter what you see in the mirror, take heart. You can’t change the past, but the future is yours to write. Begin to require each of these four qualities in your actions to take steps toward having wonderfully good character.

A discussion of this material was recently presented in the FREE weekly Well Being 101 Meetup Group, https://www.meetup.com/Well-Being-101/ via Zoom. Use this link to RSVP. You are welcome to join us any Tuesday at noon as we explore the basic tools of Being 101 in the coming weeks to build our well-being.