Character & Virtue

The relationship between character, critical thinking skills, neurodiversity, and innovation is multifaceted and deeply interconnected. Neurodiversity refers to the variation in the human brain regarding sociability, learning, attention, mood, and other mental functions. The concept of neurodiversity suggests that these variations are not deficits but differences that can contribute positively to society, particularly in the context of innovation. 

CharacterUp starts with an Upenn assessment of VIA Survey of 24 Character Strengths to determine top strengths, and 

We then send out weekly 20-minute prompts of a single character trait, with a short video, definitions, and examples. 

After looking for this trait during the week, in classes/books/social media/news, they record at least one image, quote, exemplar, or situation that they want to remember about this trait. 

 Our education system is not equipping students with the skills and capabilities to prepare for a career where they can obtain financial stability. There is a steady decline in jobs requiring routine manual and cognitive skills and an increase in jobs requiring non-routine analytical and interpersonal skills. 

To thrive in today’s innovation-driven economy, workers need a different mix of skills than in the past. In addition to foundational skills like literacy and numeracy, they need competencies like collaboration, creativity, and problem-solving, and character qualities like persistence, curiosity, and initiative. Changes in the labor market have heightened the need for all individuals to have these skills. Skilled jobs are increasingly centered on solving unstructured problems and effectively analyzing information. 

Character, or how we approach our changing environment, is key to resilience and success in today's innovative economy. Amid rapidly changing markets, character qualities such as persistence and adaptability ensure greater resilience and success in facing obstacles. Curiosity and initiative are starting points for discovering new concepts and ideas. Leadership and social and cultural awareness involve constructive interactions with others in socially, ethically, and culturally appropriate ways.

Now more than ever, building our students' character apart from academic skills is very essential. To be employable, students must understand the importance of personal traits like integrity, empathy, tolerance, patience, respect, and gratitude. They must learn more about people outside their immediate environment and discover similarities and differences. 

Cultivating Character is an Open Educational Resource Hub that integrates character development and complex thinking into the foundational literacies needed to be successful in the 21st century. Our project engages students through weekly 15-minute transmedia modules that can be facilitated within any homeroom, curriculum, or after-school activity - or used as an individual self-development practice. This provides the scaffolding for students - and educators - to begin understanding the many facets of character, from creativity to grit, and how each can be developed through self-reflection and metacognition. 

We curate a variety of open resources from professionally produced short videos like The  Science of Character https://vimeo.com/79444520   and use character strength assessments from UPenn's Positive Personality Profiles https://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/testcenter.

Through a weekly character strength prompt of[1] , students become aware of an exemplar of the trait and its value in daily life or a career. Teachers are prompted to show how a character’s strength might appear in a dilemma within their core subject (e.g., ethics in science, justice in history.) A social media campaign creates a weekly “tag” of a demonstration of character in the news. 

The weekly format gives students time to reflect on their own strengths and starts to form a “practice” to develop a growth mindset. As students reflect and engage with the skill, they begin to see it in themselves and others. They can also share it, which can evolve into positive content for any social platform.

The 21st century has fundamentally changed the nature of work and how students think about career choices. 

• 65% of the jobs today's students will hold in the future don't even exist yet,
• 75% of learners who want to build new skills prefer to do so somewhere other than a four-year college or university  
• 50% of parents want their child to have alternatives to a four-year institution 
• 61% percent of college graduates regret their choice of major (Koch 2023)
• 60% of people report being emotionally detached from their work, and 19% report being miserable. (Gallop 2020)

Many students experience school as inequitable, irrelevant, and insufficient to prepare them for lives of meaning, purpose, and success. They experience a one-size-fits-all education model that prizes exclusivity and standardization over meeting individual needs. Career pivots are difficult.  Conversely, getting on the right career trajectory is critical at the beginning of one’s education and career and can lead to a life of dedication, consistency, and impact.

Today’s students are more likely to have multiple careers in various fields, with an increasing number becoming entrepreneurs and gig workers.  They aren’t limited by finding a job in their zip code, or even one currently existing.

We are a scaffolding to support personalized career education and lifelong learning by encouraging curiosity and exploration, sharing self-learning opportunities, and making it easy to access educational materials that interest them. It provides inspiration from leaders and peers.  This growth mindset will continue supporting them to successfully navigate a lifetime of career development and changes.