Character Development Center for Children
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Jav:
Basically, we aim to be a centre which specialises sole in children's character education. The courses that we will be offering will be specific character traits courses. For example, there will be courses on self-discipline, honesty, positive attitude, how to not be self-centred and of course many more which we can include based on surveys that we will be conducting.Hi,
This would be interesting. I am staying near to Bt Timah. Can you explain more what will you be covering in the Character Development Program. My husband was just mentioning about it last week.
Of course, I understand that some of these may have already been taught in schools. But we believe the stuffs taught in school will not be comprehensive and intensive enough to leave an impression in children's minds. A brief \"Honesty means that you should not tell lies. Honesty means that you should return the wallet you found on streets to the rightful owner\" will not suffice as children generally become more knowledgeable through experential learning.
Our courses will be taking the intensive approach: For example, a course on \"Honesty\" can take four 2-hours session to complete. Your children will be in a classroom setting, learning through fun activities conducted by our \"trainers\". Also, they will be given a \"logbook cum worksheet\" to record what they have learnt in class and we believe this will help them retain some information.Andaiz:
As mentioned above, we're looking at educating children based on individual character traits which can run up to a number of 40 if I'm not wrong. Of course, it's not just a center to address children behavior problems, but also one who provides concentrated character education with a wide range of courses(character traits) that you wish to in-build in your child.Hi,
Davionang,
This is a good concept but Character development is a wide topic. What are you specifically looking at and what areas would you choose to concentrate on?ChiefKiasu:
Hi ChiefKiasu. If I were to give you a textbook answer, I wouldn't have any :lol: My opinion of character development is to impart the right values to a child, then again, you may ask what are the right values? Many a times, parents, especially those in SG, tends to over-focus on academic enrichment such as tuitions. Real-life examples has made our team think twice about pushing our future children to tuitions. Remember the case of a top JC student hitting the driver of a bus over a retained bus card sets the public? White-collar crimes? Doctors peddling Subutex? Lawyers fleeing away with client's money? Sure, you may say that they are highly intelligent people and I will agree. So what is the cause of all these incidents? Incorrect moral behaviors.Hi,
Hi davionang, before we start answering your questions, would you humor me by answering this little question:
What is character development?
Thank you.?
I thank you all for the questions and hope that I have managed to clarify most of them.
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davionang:
As mentioned above, we're looking at educating children based on individual character traits which can run up to a number of 40 if I'm not wrong. Of course, it's not just a center to address children behavior problems, but also one who provides concentrated character education with a wide range of courses(character traits) that you wish to in-build in your child.
So...... :idea: ........ do you mean to insinuate that parents coming to this
proposed centre get to pick and choose the character they wish to \"build\"
into the child? For what they think the child is lacking?
I'm just curious though, how 4 2-hr sessions can ensure the child WILL be
honest....... throughout their lives? Children grow into adults and being
adults they are put into different situations and experiences with school,
work and life in general. Hence character building grows with the child as
the experiences in life grows..... as the child matures.
Character development..... shouldn't it begin from the home..... in the home
and starting from us parents? Especially those at a very young age. I
find that as parents we take years to help children cultivate positive
values in them and not something that can necessarily be-drilled-to
learn.
Offence examples listed by you can derive from the lack of values or as
you say moral behaviours, however, it can also be a case of multi-factorial
aspects of the individual and their circumstances. Humans are driven by
emotions/feelings which may not necessarily mean they intended for the
actions, but more to the heat of the moment when they were troubled...?
I'm not insinuating that should be an excuse but desperations can lead to
extreme repercussions and likewise for troubled minds... For example,
someone in debt can be driven to stealing. Seeing his children go hungry
drove him to desperation. Not that he doesn't have values. He can be a
good man but he may have thought there isn't a way out to solve his
problems...
Just my honest curiosity... no offence intended. -
buds:
... I'm just curious though, how 4 2-hr sessions can ensure the child WILL be honest....... throughout their lives? Children grow into adults and being adults they are put into different situations and experiences with school, work and life in general. Hence character building grows with the child as the experiences in life grows..... as the child matures. Character development..... shouldn't it begin from the home..... in the home and starting from us parents? ...
Well put, buds. So say we all. Character development cannot be taught. It is learnt through exposure to how other people handle various situations, and imprinted as we ourselves react to the situations based on our own personal beliefs on how to do so. A child that gets yelled at all the time learns to yell at other people all the time. A child who sees an adult spiting at a beggar will spit at other people that they consider lesser than themselves. A child who sees how hard his parents work to earn a living learns the importance of hardwork and the value of money without being spoken to about it. It is difficult to see how one can learn character development through a couple of hours of weekly lessons in a classroom setting. How different would it be from going to Church weekly and learning about the Ten Commandments to rule our basic behavior? -
is it a 12-mth course thingy or an ongoing course until one see results?
then how are results going to be measurable? being able to score full marks in a set of morale-related 'exam' questions does not guarantee that one will carry the same values.
any money-back guarantee? :evil:
why opting to set the centre at a premium estate as opposed to a regular neighbourhood?
what are the qualifications of the trainers? counsellors (for behavioural issues)? leaders in their field/successful entreprenuers (for leadership traits)? if any 'in house trained' personnel can 'teach' character development, how different is it from DIY from parenting books?
a tailor-made course for parents to learn about how to develop their child's potential/address behavioural issues may be more feasible, as what was mentioned by some parents here, the same set of undesirable traits may be fuel by different underlying circumstances.
2cents. Your Final Year project; if you can go through our 'panel of judges' you should be able to ace your project interview
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buds:
Yes, that is what we have proposed originally. Of course, this system of \"picking\" can be changed.davionang:
As mentioned above, we're looking at educating children based on individual character traits which can run up to a number of 40 if I'm not wrong. Of course, it's not just a center to address children behavior problems, but also one who provides concentrated character education with a wide range of courses(character traits) that you wish to in-build in your child.
So...... :idea: ........ do you mean to insinuate that parents coming to this
proposed centre get to pick and choose the character they wish to \"build\"
into the child? For what they think the child is lacking?
I'm just curious though, how 4 2-hr sessions can ensure the child WILL be
honest....... throughout their lives? Children grow into adults and being
adults they are put into different situations and experiences with school,
work and life in general. Hence character building grows with the child as
the experiences in life grows..... as the child matures.
Character development..... shouldn't it begin from the home..... in the home
and starting from us parents? Especially those at a very young age. I
find that as parents we take years to help children cultivate positive
values in them and not something that can necessarily be-drilled-to
learn.
Offence examples listed by you can derive from the lack of values or as
you say moral behaviours, however, it can also be a case of multi-factorial
aspects of the individual and their circumstances. Humans are driven by
emotions/feelings which may not necessarily mean they intended for the
actions, but more to the heat of the moment when they were troubled...?
I'm not insinuating that should be an excuse but desperations can lead to
extreme repercussions and likewise for troubled minds... For example,
someone in debt can be driven to stealing. Seeing his children go hungry
drove him to desperation. Not that he doesn't have values. He can be a
good man but he may have thought there isn't a way out to solve his
problems...
Just my honest curiosity... no offence intended.
I understand your qualms and I agree with you that these sessions may not be sufficient enough to ensure that a child holds on to that positive character trait for his life. Yes, character development should begin at home. However, we took into consideration the fact of increasing latchkey children, and the prevalence of dual-income families. Many a times, these children are left to fend for themselves after school as both their parents are working, and of course they would have a higher probability of going astray, picking up bad habits/traits.
What we want to do is to work with parents, act like a catalyst to their children's character well-being. Like you said, it will take years for parents to cultivate positive values in them. That's why we want to be a driving force, an additional avenue for parents to put their child through with regards to holistic education.
I concur that human's desperation can lead them to going against their moral values, lead them to doing very bad things. That said, the \"good man\" in the picture will be living a life of guilt as he has done something forbidden.ChiefKiasu:
Character can be taught. Humans are absorptive creatures. This means that they are shaped and are easily influenced by their environment. In the case of young children, this is especially true. Normally, we say that character is something that any individual has once one is born. It is an inborn trait which is natural to all individuals. However, I sincerely believe that it can be taught. Like you have expressed, it's the lessons learned through life by the different people a person comes across, that really teaches character in a person; people learn as they grow and they acquire their characters from the kind of environment they are in.Well put, buds. So say we all. Character development cannot be taught. It is learnt through exposure to how other people handle various situations, and imprinted as we ourselves react to the situations based on our own personal beliefs on how to do so. A child that gets yelled at all the time learns to yell at other people all the time. A child who sees an adult spiting at a beggar will spit at other people that they consider lesser than themselves. A child who sees how hard his parents work to earn a living learns the importance of hardwork and the value of money without being spoken to about it. It is difficult to see how one can learn character development through a couple of hours of weekly lessons in a classroom setting. How different would it be from going to Church weekly and learning about the Ten Commandments to rule our basic behavior?
Whether we're parents or teachers or coaches or just ordinary citizens, we naturally have the responsibility to gear our children to the right aspects of their life. There is a need to let them know what's right and what's wrong. That is what I believe, they learn from adults' actions, words, advice.
A child has many experiences in their childhood and as young adults where they're choosing from right or wrong. It's up to them what they choose, and in result the path they take in life. But how do they choose? What will push them to choose right, and how will they know to choose it? I guess it's from what the adults in their lives tell them, it's from what parents teach them at home. By providing an additional avenue to help hasten and solidify the process, we hope to work hand-in-hand with parents to achieve good character well-being of their children.
Lastly, children easily assimilate the things they encounter in real life. So that if a child sees and learns pleasant things around him, there is little chance that the child would become a bad person.jedamum:
Tentatively, we have set 1 month for each character trait (e.g. self-discipline in 1-month course. But judging on the comments and responses here, I will be looking to changing the course layout. If it was ongoing, will you be willing to pay \"ongoing-ly\"?is it a 12-mth course thingy or an ongoing course until one see results?
then how are results going to be measurable? being able to score full marks in a set of morale-related 'exam' questions does not guarantee that one will carry the same values.
any money-back guarantee? :evil:
why opting to set the centre at a premium estate as opposed to a regular neighbourhood?
what are the qualifications of the trainers? counsellors (for behavioural issues)? leaders in their field/successful entreprenuers (for leadership traits)? if any 'in house trained' personnel can 'teach' character development, how different is it from DIY from parenting books?
a tailor-made course for parents to learn about how to develop their child's potential/address behavioural issues may be more feasible, as what was mentioned by some parents here, the same set of undesirable traits may be fuel by different underlying circumstances.
2cents. Your Final Year project; if you can go through our 'panel of judges' you should be able to ace your project interview
Ace-ing character-related assessments and exams are not what we intend to do, like you said, there is no guarantee of carrying the same values. I understand that as parents, you do not wish to waste money on something that you won't be able to see the effectiveness. However, we are looking at character education here. It is different from academic-enrichment classes whereby you can see the increase/decrease in your children's grades and attribute the success to that tuition centre. Therefore, I would say that the results will be hard to measure and we're still thinking of a fool-proof way.
Opting to set the centre at a premium estate as we know that the households have one of the highest income in Singapore, as opposed to a regular neighbourhood, they have a higher tendency to spend on such enrichment. Moreover, the proposed centre location that we're looking at is surrounded by a few good primary schools, and tons of kindergartens, childcare centres; giving us a close proximity to our target market.
I do have information about our trainers, but I'm afraid I can't provide any information yet due to confidentiality issues.
The course for parents to develop their child's potential/address behavioral issues may well be another service that our centre can provide, thank you.
\"Panel of judges\", I kinda agree. But my purpose here is more on gaining insights from the parents around here, I thank you all for the inputs.
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Oh no! not another form of ‘enrichment’ I cry !! Enrichment for the soul ?
From everything I read here, your good intentions come with a price to parents. The price is their dollars for their time.
Children around the world are screaming for their parents to connect with them, not drop them off yet again, to learn what should be taught organically in the home, in their community, in the company of good family and friends and their religious beliefs. This is where the real connections happen and character building begins and ends, surely? Remember, sitting with grandfather as he told you stories of how he saved someone’s life? Hearing dad tell us about how tempted he was to take the job with more money but he didn’t because …
Character building, values, right and wrong are taught through consequences and not in a centre. As you mentioned your target group was the latch-key kids. It is an assumption here that latch-key kids are already missing out on values…they may be the leaders of tomorrow as perhaps their parents have set them up with their boundaries that work for them. There were time when my kids had to use their own key but not at the expense of their value building.
If the intention is to provide a community service, free of cost to kids that need additional support, I would volunteer my expertise to teach for free here. I am guessing it is not such a service?
The question raised to you in this forum - about your trainers was an open question and and did not call for details, the question posed was ‘what qualifications do your trainers have who will be teaching such values’ ? Psychologists? Trained counsellors in early development/teens?
A character centre in my humble opinion would encourage parents who are career oriented to spend further time at work and to leave the responsibility to someone else to teach character building. This is a sad day for kids.
Skippy -
Like what our grandmasters mentioned, character development has got to start from home and has to do with the day-to-day activities and happenings, and how we and what our children go through. Emphasizing on academics has its merits in developing discipline, patience, endurance, determination, will-power ...although over-emphasis on these has their downside depending on parental expectation...
In my humble opinion, a possible way to hold such classes may be to talk and share, to get people (children in this case) thinking. Role-play, and going home with questions/topics to share with papa and mama. Parents these days may be occupied with academics, true, and little time is left to heart-to-heart talk about things in life, or about people around us, who may need help, why some people behave the way they do etc. How and what they themselves will react or should behave under certain circumstances... but I think some pre-schools already have this in their curriculum.
Personally, I think it's going to be tricky teaching 3 year-olds these when they are barely learning to give and share, why they shouldn't bite when they are angry or throw tantrums :rant: ...minimum age of 5, maybe?? -
Yeah, character building is such a broad subject - I was thinking: shouldn’t Honesty be under ‘Moral Education’ which we used to have in school? I suppose that is also part of character development.
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Let me be evil here and ask some harsh questions, davionang. Sorry, no offence intended!
I mean to help you see things from our/my perspective.
Your intentions are absolutely good, but if I look at this from the most cynical angle possible, I would say - aren't you just another childcare centre? Most childcare centres say upfront and proudly that they are very into character development, and sure enough some of them do in fact consistently \"teach\" this \"topic\" to children. So, what's going to be really different for your centre?
Why do you purposely choose Bukit Timah and specifically call it a \"premier\" location? To be frank I already know the answer, but I would like to see you say it up front. Are you targeting rich/elite families? Are you planning to charge above average? Are you branding yourself as a high-class outfit? Will you also purposely hire only expat/caucasian teachers?
Is character development the sole privilege of the rich? Middle- and lower-income families can't afford character development? Shouldn't the less well-off be more entitled to and needy of more character development since it takes great character to survive without wealth in this materialistic society?
See, I'm evil right?
Your methodology appears to be prescriptive.
[quote]Our courses will be taking the intensive approach: For example, a course on \"Honesty\" can take four 2-hours session to complete. Your children will be in a classroom setting, learning through fun activities conducted by our \"trainers\". Also, they will be given a \"logbook cum worksheet\" to record what they have learnt in class and we believe this will help them retain some information. [/quote]\"Intensive\"? \"four sessions to 'complete'\"? \"fun\"? \"logbook cum worksheet\"? \"record\"? \"retain information\"?
I think you are blinded by old-fashioned pedagogy. Sorry, absolutely no offense intended, I am just stretching the argument to the limit.
How does one learn character development \"intensively\"? Is character development time-dependent in any way? Will you also be counting experience points (aka XP) in your logbook?
Character development is \"fun\"? Since when? All my life, my greatest character development lessons were learnt when I was having the LEAST fun, when I suffered like hell, when I was in pain, when I was in tears. Do you plan to show our children that being morally upright is \"fun\"? How do you relate that to the greed, despotism, dishonesty, deterioration, debauchery that is the mainstay of many having \"fun\" in society today?
Don't you think you may be setting up the wrong expectations?
But let me turn 180-degrees for a moment. Actually, one of the greatest problems we face in society today is in fact the point that, when people suffer, they feel they need to make others suffer too. Only a truly kind soul will realize that because he suffered, he wants to prevent others from suffering the same pain. And to succeed in this should bring some form of satisfaction, and perhaps that can be considered \"fun\" in a strange way.
My 7 years of parenthood has made me realize flaws in my character, and also painted in very stark terms how children turn bad when their parents are bad. Bringing up my daughter has been one of the greatest lessons in building my character, ever. It has even shown me how some adults are worse than children - and that means that sometimes it is the children who can teach adults character. My point - remember not to assume that adults are the only people qualified to teach children character; the relationship is at least mutual. In this light, when you plan your programme, you should do your utmost to involve parents intimately.
P.S. Eh Chief you watch BSG too ah. That one sure has a lot of character development! -
[quote]Lastly, children easily assimilate the things they encounter in real life. So that if a child sees and learns pleasant things around him, there is little chance that the child would become a bad person.
[/quote]If the child only learns about pleasant things around him, then I would think that I fail as a parent. You are encouraging a child to be brought up in a bubble? What happens when the bubble bursts? The child would be unable to deal with reality.....
[quote]Tentatively, we have set 1 month for each character trait (e.g. self-discipline in 1-month course. But judging on the comments and responses here, I will be looking to changing the course layout. If it was ongoing, will you be willing to pay \"ongoing-ly\"? [/quote]It is obvious that you are going into this for $$$ with the seemingly noble selling point of character building/shaping children.
[quote]Ace-ing character-related assessments and exams are not what we intend to do, like you said, there is no guarantee of carrying the same values. I understand that as parents, you do not wish to waste money on something that you won't be able to see the effectiveness. However, we are looking at character education here. It is different from academic-enrichment classes whereby you can see the increase/decrease in your children's grades and attribute the success to that tuition centre. Therefore, I would say that the results will be hard to measure and we're still thinking of a fool-proof way. [/quote]Wow, great for you, but not so great a deal for us parents isn't it... theres no way to prove that whatever hard-earned money that we are paying will reap results and theres no way of testing/proving it.
Yes, I seem bitchy about your answers to our questions, thats because I am upset that you have the guts to come seek our opinions on how to part with our hard earned $$ for your high-end venture that has no way of valuating the rewards.
Lastly, so how would you judge your character???
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