Character Strengths

In the first week of my Coursera course on teaching character, I had to rate and assign 24 character strengths for my students, and then for myself. There was a file with 24 different strengths in one column, a column for student success, and a column for myself after taking an online survey at http://rly.gs/mystrengths/

For my students, the top ten character strengths I assigned were:

1. Love
2. Kindness
3. Integrity
4. Forgiveness
5. Gratitude
6. Humility
7. Hope (optimism)
8. Open-mindedness
9. Love of Learning
10. Self-control

After taking the online survey, my top ten were:

1. Forgiveness
2. Honesty
3. Fairness
4. Love of Learning
5. Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence
6. Grit
7. Teamwork
8. Curiosity
9. Gratitude
10. Humility

While there were a few strengths I had in both my and my students’ top ten, there wasn’t much overlap. I was surprised because I had some strengths which I ranked lower for my students (Appreciation of Beauty and Excellence, for example).

This sort of exercise is a great way to reflect on how you are teaching as well as what you show your students. A quote by James Baldwin, one of the speakers in a video lecture, said this:

“… Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.”

That is such a powerful quote to me. If overall student behavior is a reflection of their teacher, then I want to show my students positive character strengths. What about you?