Teachers can assist in Creating an Ethical Community by:

1.Help students know each other through activities such as:

Sharing personal stories

Provide a class directory

Structure weekly optional seating plans

Initiate a “Laws of Life” essay contest in your class (you can get

all the information you need from the ethic link Laws of Life from

web site www.ethicsusa.com)

2.Teach students to respect, affirm, and care about each other.

By respecting each of them for who they are

Post “Caring Community” Sign in their class (Gene Bedley has

designed 30 teen posters that assist teachers in promoting ethics)

Support all the efforts your school leaders make in promoting

Respect in your school.

Support a Teen Respect Seminar to train all the natural Helpers and

leaders in the school.

Start a character thought of the week around the meaning of Respectful

Listening (Monday Memos are available in the Values in Action! Guide.)

3. Help students develop a feeling of membership in and

responsibility to and for the group.

Discuss the things that enhance learning and those things that

destroy learning. Create a Class Mission from the things that benefit

student learning and have entire class sign.

Develop class cohesion and identity through traditions

and symbols. Help kids see they are part of a larger diverse group of

individuals that are all different.

Include a lesson in your class on “Classroom Manners” (you can get the

lesson from the Values in Action! Newsletter titled Teenagers and

Manners they really do go together. by Hal Urban (You can find the

newsletter at www.ethicsusa.com)

Develop each student’s feeling of being a unique and

valued member of the class community.

Gene Bedley

National Educator of the Year

Downey High School Graduate 1956

– Gene Bedley