When I arrived to collect my 7-year-old from her after-school program the other day, many youngsters were gathered on the playing field to admire a fabulous rainbow arching across the sky. After a while, the rainbow faded. The children and the after-school teachers turned around and returned to their regularly scheduled activities.

In a similar way, many educators and parents gather to admire the beauty of the notion of values in the school. Then, after awhile, the beauty of the moment fades and all return to the ongoing demands of school life.

How to make values last? How to bring the beauty of the goal of holding laudable values such as compassion, persistence and responsibility, from outside the framework of the school day to a phenomenon that thrives within it?

There are no simple answers, only a tapestry of individual school experiences. For over five years, I’ve chaired the Core Values Committee of the Cabot Elementary School in Newton, Massachusetts. Our committee is composed of our school’s principal, Marilynne Quarcoo, teachers, and parents. When I came to the committee, parents and teachers had already identified three core values: Becoming Lifelong Learners, Respect for Self & Others, and Commitment to School & Community. From the outset, our challenge was how to weave our stated core values into the fabric of school life. “Core values allow the school community to remain focused on what’s important”, says Quarcoo. “They provide a mirror for our decision making, and provide a guide and reason for our actions and behaviors.”

Here are some approaches that worked for us, and may work for you.

(1) Define Your Core Values — It Creates a “Default Position”

Nearly ten years ago, the principal, teachers, and parents at the Cabot School, over an extensive process (or so I heard, since it occurred before I entered the school system), identified three core values. Concomitant to that, all public schools in Massachusetts in 1991 were mandated to formulate a strategy of core values.

Since that time, we’ve found some unexpected benefits to having articulated our school’s core values. Jodi Escalante, a kindergarten teacher at our school, was the first to coin the phrase “default position” relative to the benefits of core values in the classroom. “As a teacher, I’m frequently called upon to make decisions, resolve conflicts, work through dilemmas or problem solve in other ways,” says Escalante. “Having core values gives me a consistent direction. It removes