What’s the most exciting thing that’s happened in the Branson area over the last year? The Titanic Museum, the Great Exposition at Silver Dollar City, the highway 65 improvements to the south, Branson Landing, Branson Hills, voters approval of a marketing tax, etc.? All worthy candidates but, to an Ole Seagull, the most exciting thing that happened isn’t any of those. It isn’t even something that can be measured using the normal gauges of success that the Branson area loves to use, tax revenues, rate of first time visitors, theatre seats filled, occupancy rates, etc.
It is the completion and overwhelming success of the first school year of the FirstPLACE program. FirstPlace is a common sense program that uses a combination of our areas schools, the community, and family to fill the minds of our children with, and reinforce, positive character traits that can forever change their lives.
Each month of the school year the schools emphasized and intentionally taught one character trait. That trait was reinforced during the month not only at school but throughout the community as “partners,” and, hopefully families reinforced that trait by committing to demonstrate one visible action each month that tied into the trait.
The character traits covered each month were as follows: September – Respect – treating others with courtesy and honor; October – Responsibility – taking ownership of what you say and do; November – Citizenship – being loyal to your country; December – Compassion/Kindness – caring for others; January – Commitment – being true to your word; February – Honesty – being truthful in what you say and do; March – Cooperation – working together toward a common goal; April – Perseverance – demonstrating persistent determination; May – Self-discipline – training and control of yourself.
Some might say, “But Seagull, what’s exciting about that?” Quite simply, that it happened! What does that say about a community that has the honesty to acknowledge the importance of character education in preparing its children for their future citizenship and accepts the responsibility to meet that need? Its one thing to recognize a need, but our community had the respect, compassion, and kindness for its children to make the commitment to unite together in a spirit of cooperation to fulfill that responsibility.
Our actions say that we are a community that cares and has the wisdom, self-discipline, and perseverance to meet the needs of our children even as it faces the economic, environmental, quality of life, and other challenges of today’s ever changing and competitive reality. We are a community that is blessed with a myriad of people and organizations that recognize and respond to its various needs.
The College of the Ozarks, an institution where character is a foundational part of the educational process, recognized the need and accepted the responsibility for taking a leadership roll. The result was the FirstPLACE program, a partnership among The Keeter Center for Character Education at College of the Ozarks, Characterplus, and the public schools in
It would be easy to say, “And the rest is history” but that really wouldn’t be accurate. The rest was a lesson in self discipline as people and organizations made and implemented the decisions necessary for them to fulfill their FirstPLACE commitments and responsibilities. The cooperation of all the elements required for the success of the program, businesses, parents, grandparents, the special efforts of our area’s teachers and educators, and the community perseverance so necessary to make the character traits being taught something our children can use for the rest of their lives was, to an Ole Seagull, exciting to behold.
A person can be no more than what is in their mind. A great book says, “Whatever is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, of good repute, of excellence, or worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things.” How much more exciting can it get than to have the minds of our children filled with “these things,” not much, not much at all.
This column is humbly and respectfully dedicated to Sue Head and Sharon Friesz, from the The Keeter Center for Character Education at College of the Ozarks, the FirstPLACE “angels” of self discipline, respect, responsibility, citizenship, commitment, honesty, and perseverance but most of all, compassion and kindness.
