Marvin Berkowitz, a professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis (USA) participated in a conference at the University of Navarra and highlighted some strategies for educational success. They include prioritizing character development, establishing strategic relationships between all members of an educational community— from teachers to cafeteria staff— motivating students to internalize the good and act beyond reward, embodying the values ​​you want see in students and giving a voice to students.

The expert participated in a conference organized by the “Researching and promoting character education in Latin American secondary schools” project, which the School of Education and Psychology and the Institute for Culture and Society co-direct and the Templeton World Charity Foundation finances.

Along with this model, which he calls PRIME (Priority, Relationships, Intrinsic motivation, being a Model and Empowered), Professor Berkowitz made other recommendations for achieving educational objectives. As he noted, "We need differentiation, individualization and personalization that acts on two levels. On the first, there must be common objectives that take into account each person’s possibilities and strengths. We must institutionalize the achievement of objectives, so that every child, in consensus with his/her teacher, sets personal goals in academics and character education and works to achieve them."

In addition to these ideas for schools, Professor Berkowitz offered some guidelines for parents. "The first is to simply love children. They know if they are truly loved and are very sensitive to it,” he noted.

In addition, he recommended having high expectations for children: "This does not mean asking them to be someone they are not, but rather asking them to give their best effort. This includes academics, as well as character education." On this topic, he stressed the importance of "building support systems so that they can meet these expectations," which especially includes communicating with them.

Character education: Forming good people to make the system work

Moreover, he stressed that, "it is important to give children’s opinions weight within the family on appropriate topics". With regard to praise and reprimand, he advised explaining "why you are pleased or disappointed with your child in a way he/she can understand and focusing in on how their behavior affected others’ feelings."

Professor Berkowitz values character education because, "if people are not good, the system will fail." In this regard, he recalled that, "much of Western society is becoming individualistic, selfish, competitive... We must educate the next generation to ensure they carry forward a democratic life and care for the world".

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

Professor Marvin Berkowitz was among the experts who attended a conference that the School of Education and Psychology and the Institute for Culture and Society of the University of Navarra organized.  Participants from character education centers came from the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain and Switzerland.