As the founder and Executive Director of KIPP Philadelphia Schools, I was surprised to read Dr. Laurence Steinberg’s Flypaper post on how KIPP charter schools approach character development. In response to his portrayal of our character work, I want to offer a KIPP educator’s perspective.
The headline of Dr. Steinberg’s piece asks, “Is character education the answer?” Neither I nor anyone at KIPP believes that teaching character in and of itself is the answer to the challenges faced by our students—85 percent of whom grow up in poverty. But just because character isn’t the answer, doesn’t mean it isn’t part of an answer. We know from several studies that certain character strengths play an important role in increasing students’ academic success. And a growing body of research, like that by the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and Dr. Carol Dweck from Stanford University, indicates that elements related to KIPP character strengths like social intelligence and optimism are ultimately teachable.
When approached thoughtfully and deliberately, teaching character strengths can help students develop the resiliency to overcome life’s obstacles. We’re already seeing that KIPP students graduate college at more than four times the rate of students from the country’s lowest-income families; by investing in character in our schools, we are aiming to raise that rate even higher.
While Dr. Steinberg is complimentary of much of KIPP’s work, his description of our approach to teaching character as a settled protocol is not entirely accurate. It is in fact a highly dynamic and fluid aspect of our work. Since Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin created KIPP twenty years ago, KIPP has emphasized character as much as academics; however, our actual approach to teaching character has become more systematic of late.
Starting in 2011, we have looked to cutting-edge research from psychologists like Martin Seligman and Angela Duckworth from the University of Pennsylvania; the late Chris Peterson from the University of Michigan; and many others to inform our work and help us craft a more systematic approach. With the help of these psychologists, we have identified seven character strengths that are highly predictive of success and happiness in life—curiosity, gratitude, grit, optimism, self-control, social intelligence, and zest. Like many KIPP educators, our principals and teachers at KIPP Philadelphia build our school culture around these strengths, and use them as a jumping off point to have targeted conversations with students and parents about how to identify, nurture, and rely on their strengths over time.
I also want to address the issue of effectiveness. Dr. Steinberg references Mathematica’s 2013 report on KIPP schools, in which the researchers gave students surveys about various character-related topics and found no substantial difference between the outcomes for KIPP students and students from neighboring schools. However, since these results were self-reported, the findings themselves are inconclusive. Because KIPP students are more aware of how much growing they have to do, they may be more likely to rate themselves lower on surveys in areas like self-control and grit. We simply don’t have the studies yet to make conclusions about KIPP’s character work on a rigorous study level—but researchers like Angela Duckworth are working on it. In fact, she is working with KIPP Philadelphia’s students in the next phase of her research.
Finally, I want to address Dr. Steinberg’s recommendations for approaches that have been shown to work. He highlights mindfulness as an example of an important and impactful focus. At KIPP Philadelphia, we completely agree—and we’ve already incorporated mindfulness into our work. For example, an assistant principal at one of our middle schools created a yoga-inspired mindfulness program, and began conducting it with students on a daily basis. Students learn how to incorporate mindfulness techniques like breathing not only into their days at school, but into their life outside of school as well. One student in particular had previously struggled with focus and anger issues; he benefited so much from the mindfulness sessions that this assistant principal invited him to lead a breathing exercise for his school’s entire staff to show them all the benefits of this strategy.
I can write so much more about how we’re addressing character at KIPP Philadelphia, but there’s no substitute for seeing work like this in action. KIPP has an open-door policy for visitors; I gladly invite Dr. Steinberg and anyone else who’s curious about KIPP’s character work to visit our schools here in Philadelphia, to witness firsthand how we approach balancing academics and character in the classroom and throughout our schools.
Character development is far from the only solution for public education students. But here at KIPP, we’ve found it to be one approach among many that have contributed to creating a culture where students have the character strengths to succeed in college and go on to live happy, choice-filled lives. We believe it is an approach that deserves further investment and research.
The writer is the CEO and Founder of KIPP Philadelphia Schools.
