Prioritizing the development of character, establishing strategic relationships between all members of the educational community -from teachers to cooks-, motivating students to internalize the good and not act for the reward, setting an example by embodying the values that you want to see in students and giving students a voice are some successful strategies in the Education school. This was explained at the University of Navarra by psychologist Marvin Berkowitz, professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis (USA).

The expert participated in a workshop of the project 'Investigating and promote Education of character in Latin American secondary schools', which is jointly developed by the School of Education and Psychology and the Institute for Culture and Societyand funded by the World Templeton Charity Foundation.

Along with this model, which he calls PRIME (Priority, Relationships, Intrinsic motivation, being model and Empower), Professor Berkowitz made other recommendations on goal achievement.Differentiation, individualization and personalization are needed, acting on two levels," he said. In the first, there must be common objectives, but taking into account the possibilities and strengths of each person. The achievement of objectives must be institutionalized, so that each child, in agreement with the teacher, establishes personal academic and character goals and works to achieve them".

In addition to these ideas for schools, the specialist offered some guidelines for parents. "The first is simply to love children. They really know if they are loved and they are very sensitive to that," he stressed.

Second, he recommended having high expectations of children: "It's not about asking them to be someone they can't be, but to do their best. This includes academics, but also character." On this, he stressed the importance of "building support systems so that they can achieve this," especially by talking to them.

Education of character: good people to make the system work

On the other hand, she emphasized that "you have to let the child's opinions count in the family, in the appropriate topics". Regarding praise and reprimands, she advised explaining "why you are happy or disappointed with him in a way that he can understand and focusing on what provoked his behavior in the feelings of others".

Professor Berkowitz highlighted the value of character Education because "if people are not good, the system will fail". In this sense, he recalled that "much of Western society is becoming individualistic, selfish, competitive... We must educate the next generation to ensure democratic life and take care of the world".

"Every healthy society wants its citizens to care about the welfare of others, take responsibility for their actions, or tell the truth when it matters. One of the great challenges at Education of character is to separate these universal moral truths from cultural conventions," he concluded.

Professor Marvin Berkowitz was one of the experts from centers of excellence in character Education from the U.S., U.K., Spain and Switzerland who participated in the workshop of the School of Education and Psychology and the Institute for Culture and Society of the University of Navarra.