Educating For Intelligence And Character

The title of the Conference printed on the invitation I saw on my table in the faculty room immediately caught my attention and tugged into my heart and soul, “Life’s Greatest Lessons: Better Character for a Better Quality of Life”, an International Conference on Character Formation with Dr. Hal Urban. I decided to attend the half-day Conference held at the Grand Ballroom of Waterfront Hotel in Cebu City last March 2, 2016 and laid aside my other preoccupations for other times.

Dr. Hal Urban is a retired American History high school teacher and graduate school professor to education students. He taught for 36 years as an award-winning teacher at San Carlos and Woodside High Schools and at his alma mater, the University of San Francisco in California. He is the author of six books – all with emphasis on good character. He has made more than a thousand presentations in forty-one states in America and in six foreign countries. I bought one of his books for sale titled Lessons from the Classroom: 20 Things Good Teachers Do.

He titled his talk for the Conference I attended as “Positive Words, Powerful Results: Simple Ways to Honor, Affirm and Celebrate Life”. The talk was attended by hundreds of teachers and students from different schools as well as other interested individuals from the community.

Some of things he spoke about in his two-hour presentation during the Conference can be read in the book I bought such as the following: 1) Good teachers have two important goals (intelligence and character of the students); 2) Good teachers protect the atmosphere from toxic words; 3) Good teachers teach manners and the Golden Rule; and 4) Good teachers tell good stories; and 5) Good teachers help their students discover the power of choice.

I believe in what Dr. Hal Urban speaks about: that it is important to develop good character in our students at whatever level of education they are in –whether elementary, high school, college, or postgraduate – and not just impart a lot of knowledge to them. Good teachers have two important goals: to educate a person in mind and to educate a person in character. The chapter in his book that talks about the two important goals of teachers begins with quotes from two influential figures in American history – Theodore Roosevelt and Martin Luther King, Jr.

To educate a person in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.
Theodore Roosevelt

Intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character – that is the true goal of education.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Dr. Urban writes in his book that the decline of manners and civility was the single biggest change he saw during his 35 years in the classroom. He offered two theories for this decline in manners and civility: 1) Kids are a reflection of what’s going on around them in the adult world, with particular emphasis on the entertainment industry; and 2) About 90-95 percent of the time in which kids are being rude, they don’t know they’re being rude; they’re acting out of ignorance. It is important to deal immediately – in a gentle but tough way – with an unacceptable behavior a student commits in the classroom – whether it’s rude, mean-spirited, or simply against the rules. Dr. Urban took a proactive approach to the manners issue by dealing with it on the first day of school, that is, by talking with the students on creating an atmosphere in the classroom where courtesy, considerateness, respect, and politeness are observed.

The heart of Dr. Urban’s talk was on being kind. The theme of his talk was: “The kinder we are, the higher will be our quality of life”. How we treat others define us. Kind words cost little, but accomplish much. He quoted Mother Teresa who said that: Kind words are short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless. Dr. Urban highlighted the power of speech when he said that Will Durant, the author of The Story of Civilization which won for him the Pulitzer Prize, identified speech as the number one greatest achievement in the history of human race.

There are three types of words, according to Dr. Urban: neutral, toxic, and nourishing. Neutral words are neither toxic nor nourishing. Toxic words are the curse words, words that hurt and demean others, words that are disrespectful and inconsiderate of others. Nourishing words are those that build up rather than tear down. Kind words spoken to others are nourishing words because they can build up and make other people feel good; they can bring out the best in others. Kindness is more than being nice to others; it entails humility, caring, empathy, giving, and compassion.

Dr. Urban told the stories of three persons to illustrate his points. To show that we can choose the kind of attitude we have towards life and our circumstances and that we can help bring out the best in other people, he told the story of Bruce Diaso and two other persons, Tim Hansel and Victor Frankl. Bruce Diaso moved normally like everyone else before he got sick with polio in his senior high school. The polio made him unable to move either his legs or his arm such that he needed to be in a wheelchair and persons to help him with his needs. He could move his head and neck some, and he could move his hands and fingers, but that was it. But Bruce was always upbeat, had something positive to say, was courteous and kind to everyone, and was an outstanding student who worked hard and helped others. But he chose this kind of atttude; before this, he was filled with anger and self-pity when at age 17, he became a person with disability. A doctor who told him that these negative feelings won’t help him in any way caused him to change his attitude to something positive, and the keys to his attitude change are these two things: Remember to be thankful each day for all that we do have instead of what we don’t have and think of the opportunity to make something out of our lives.

Dr. Urban also told the story of his friend Tim Hansel, a dynamic person who always had something positive to say to other people. He had the ability to bring out the best in others: he looked for the good in other people, found it, and told them what he found. He also never lost his zest for life and outdoor activities. Lastly, Victor Frankl, an Austrian Jew who was thrown into a concentration camp with his family, realized that the last of human freedoms was the ability to choose one’s own attitude, no matter what the circumstances. He later wrote the book Man’s Search for Meaning and became one of the best psychotherapists in his time.

Attitude is the control center of our lives, and our everyday choices determine the quality of life we have. What we do with kindness, honesty, our body, mind, money, and work determine the quality of life we have. Dr. Urban has something to say regarding each of these subjects of our choices. For instance, with regard to work, he quoted Theodore Roosevelt who said, “Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing”. With regard to mind, he quoted Zig Ziglar who said, “You are what you are because of what goes into your mind”. With regard to the body, he said that “your body is a lifetime vehicle that needs constant care and maintenance”. On money, he shared his mother’s advice to him when he was young to save regularly and to spend wisely. On honesty, he said that trust is the foundation of all good relationships. Best of all, he had his own quote with regard to kindness: “The kinder we are, the higher will be our quality of life”.

Dr. Urban’s talk surely applies not only for teachers but also for parents and anyone who needs practical advice on how to raise the quality of our lives. But his talk has a special message for teachers. Reflecting on his talk and on his book, I come to confirm the idea that teachers should not only be armed with knowledge to impart to their students; they ought to model good character for their students. Being a teacher requires more than being equipped with the knowledge and skills to impart to the students, teachers themselves must embody positive values and must have the goal of educating not just for knowledge and skills but also for character that will shape the kind of society or community we want to have, which is a caring community free from prejudices and discrimination, crime and cruelty, bad manners and toxic atmosphere — a community where everyone is kind (humble, caring, empathic, giving, and compassionate) to everybody else.