Ethics Camp 2008

Register for Ethics Camp

For the 11th year, teachers, administrators, and counselors have come together at Ethics Center-sponsored four-day "ethics camps" to learn how to integrate character education into the classroom. Sessions focused on ethics instruction in the language arts curriculum and on integrating ethics in Catholic schools, alternative schools, and special education settings.

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Groups build a structure together. The only catch: Most team members are blindfolded and can only use one hand to place blocks. The sighted member instructs those who cannot see, and the team learns firsthand what methods of instruction and teamwork are most effective.

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Teachers go through some of the Character-Based Literacy (CBL) exercises they will use in a class discussion of the childhood favorite, If You Give A Moose a Muffin. CBL lesson plans combine teaching the skills of reading, writing, and speaking with an exploration of ethics through literature.

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Participants in an Ethics Camp session for teachers in alternative schools or special education settings show off their camp T-Shirts. CBL is used in court-community and alternative schools in the majority of California's 58 counties. This session focused on practices that build character with at-risk students.

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Since not all children learn alike, Ethics Camp shows teachers how to present materials in a variety of different modalities. Here, a group has composed a cheer using basic ethical concepts.

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Teachers at Ethics Camp learn how to bring students along from writing individual words, to headlines, to short articles. This group is checking out the final team projects.

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Too many classrooms in California suffer from a lack of sufficient resources to engage students. The Great Ethics Camp Book Give-Away allows teachers to return to their schools with literature to stimulate thinking on ethical behavior.

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Visual representation is a part of how teachers at Ethics Camp learn to teach concepts. This poster, created by a group of participants, is a "Tree of Knowledge" including key ideas from the workshop.