Eastern Hills’ Burdeshaw creates character-building curriculum

The Alabama Legislature mandated that character education be taught in elementary schools, but how that is to happen is up to each school.
   
Responding to the need for curriculum, retired teacher and Alabama Baptist Jane Burdeshaw has developed and written “Building Strong Character for a Lifetime,” designed to help students identify and learn positive character traits and manners.
   
The curriculum, which is published and distributed by Character@Heart, a nonprofit organization committed to building character in youth, is already being used in 10 Alabama schools, including two Montgomery schools that were slated to introduce the curriculum this term.
   
Intended for use in grade 4 through grade 6 classrooms, the curriculum serves as companion materials to “Manners of the Heart,” a curriculum for character education for kindergarten through grade 3, already in use in more than 100 private and public elementary schools statewide.
Dozier Elementary of Montgomery will introduce “Building Strong Character for a Lifetime” this year while Montgomery’s Halcyon Elementary will introduce both curricula.
   
Dozier already has been identified as a model school for “Manners of the Heart” because of its previous and continued experience with the curriculum. 
   
Character@Heart commissioned Burdeshaw, a member of Montgomery’s Eastern Hills Baptist Church, to write the curriculum based upon her 25 years’ experience as a teacher, according to Mike Conn, president.  “Jane taught the curriculum for years in school,” he said. 
   
In 1997 the Alabama State Legislature mandated 10 minutes of daily character education for elementary school students but did not fund a curriculum for it.
   
Since then teachers have worked from a prescribed list of words, including respect and honesty to introduce character traits to their students.
   
Commissioning Burdeshaw to write the curriculum amounted to getting her to “put on paper” what she had taught students so that other teachers could benefit from her experience and have additional resources, Conn said.
   
The curriculum focuses on character development the first semester and on manners the second semester, which Burdeshaw describes as an outgrowth of the first. 
   
A school curriculum is needed because these are not being stressed in the home, according to Burdeshaw.
   
The curriculum kit includes two videos, the first of which features citizens, both ordinary and standout, who give testimony to positive character traits. A second video focuses on manners. 
   
The kit also includes a compact disc with original music. For that, Burdeshaw, a music specialist who has directed the 150-voice Alabama Baptist All-State Children’s Honor Choir for the past three years, used an ensemble from the choir as featured singers.
   
Burdeshaw’s husband is Ray Burdeshaw, director of worship leadership/church music for the Alabama State Board of Missions.
   
“Proutes,” a mascot character, was created especially for the curriculum. Proutes, a Greek word meaning “bridled strength,” is featured throughout the material.  And other resources such as punch-out tableware are included in kits for use by students in classrooms. 
   
Besides materials, Character@Heart also provides training to teachers as well as follow-up.
   
Burdeshaw, who has been honored as Alabama’s PTA “Teacher of the Year,” has evidence that the curriculum is impacting children.
   
During an evening out in a restaurant with a children’s choir, one child who had received the character and manners training called her choir leader aside to whisper that the table was not properly set. Burdeshaw praised her for recognizing the mistake but not drawing attention to it. 
   
“It’s knowing, yet always putting the feelings of the other person first. She got the heart of it.”
Children who know how to handle themselves with character and manners are more self-confident, according to Burdeshaw.  “When they learn early, they are not fearful.”
   
Cost for the curriculum, training and follow-up is $750 to $1,000 per classroom, most of which is being underwritten by regional corporate and community sponsors — in Montgomery’s case, Dixie Electric Cooperative. 
   
More sponsors are needed, according to Burdeshaw, who suggests that local churches might want to partner in the project.
   
“It is such a desire that we be able to rally people and make them aware that the opportunity is there.”
   
Training teachers how to use the curriculum and doing follow-up both motivates and provides accountability, according to Idonia Porterfield, Character@Heart board member. Follow-up also promotes networking as teachers reveal unique ways they have utilized the curriculum that can be shared with others.
   
The demand for curriculum like “Building Strong Character for a Lifetime” — to follow on the heels of “Manners for the Heart” — was so great that Character@Heart put Burdeshaw on a fast track. It was completed within a year, according to Conn. “Fortunately, she had been working on it for 25 years.”
Character@Heart’s goals go even beyond that, said Conn, who points to “saturation.” The nonprofit organization’s board wants the curriculum to be available to students and teachers across the state.
   
The board also dreams of producing curriculum that will serve students in higher grades, although it has deliberately chosen to “control our growth,” Porterfield said.  “We don’t want it to be the new fad” that will be dropped when something else comes along.
   
Meanwhile, saturation demands that an entire school teaches and practices the elements of good character traits, according to Burdeshaw, who likes to see everyone involved. 
   
“That’s why we identify model schools,” she said. Total school involvement might then extend to projects that would reach out into the community.
   
Saturation also is needed because investing in character education now might save society the costs of “ills that come out of not having good character education,” according to Conn. “You turn the TV on at night and you see the results of 30 to 40 years without character. That’s why we need saturation.”