Character Development Center for Children

[concern2]

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??

[concern2]

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.

[sashimi]

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!

[MLR]

[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???

[winth]

some might have navigation problems.

[jedamum]

MLR:

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.

concern2:

Um...isn't Ads supposed to be in the Ads section?

wait...did i miss out something? i thought this is a 3rd yr project by some poly kid and they are researching to see if their proposal is feasible..... :?
if so, not entirely an Ad. poly final yr project only write write report report, no need to actually set up a centre...or have time changed?

[MLR]

winth:

some might have navigation problems.

Blind by their obsession to SPAM their ads/messages across.

[sashimi]

It's a spam attack. Someone's about to be banned, I'd say.

[winth]

sashimi:

It's a spam attack. Someone's about to be banned, I'd say.

YEY!!!!!!!!

[winth]

Do we get to view the ‘ban-jane-cution’ in public?