On Sept. 13, 2017, schools and community groups from around the world participated in the fourth annual Character Day, which aims to start a worldwide conversation on the importance of developing character strengths (such as resilience, grit, empathy, courage, and kindness).
Riverdale Country School (NY) has participated in Character Day from the very beginning. In fact, Dominic Randolph, head of school, helped inform the eight-minute film, “The Science of Character,” that participating intuitions show at their Character Day events.
“Since we’d been doing work on character strengths for a number of years—we probably started about 11 years ago—it was nice to have a wonderful film to support that work,” Randolph says.
He admits that the school used to have more of a celebration around Character Day than it did this year. That’s not because the topic isn’t important—in fact, it’s the opposite. “In the beginning we had a lot of different speakers come to the school and talk about character strengths, but that’s morphed into being more a part of the culture now,” he says. “Every year we highlight Character Day, but it happens more in the framework of the classrooms rather than large assemblies.”
For example, in the lower school, classes work on defining 24 different character traits throughout the year. Teachers will designate a character strength for the week so students can learn what it means and how it plays out in life.
In the middle school, teachers embed the language of character strengths within the reports they write about students. And in the home-based curriculum, students are asked to identify a character strength that has helped them succeed academically.
Ninth-graders are offered an advisory course called Delta that begins with the VIA Survey of Character Strengths, which identifies the students’ top five strengths. Throughout the year, they match those strengths to their cocurricular activities.
Riverdale also developed an app with IDEO called The Purpose Project (thepurposeproject.org) that helps high school students think more deeply about their purpose in life. “We’ve been playing around with it, and it’s being piloted in a few public schools,” Randolph says.
For Randolph, one of the best things about Character Day is that it has exponentially expanded the conversation about character, not only nationally but globally. For example, Riverdale is linked to independent schools in Australia.