Award-winning psychologist and educator Thomas Lickona offers more than one hundred practical strategies that parents and schools have used to help kids build strong personal character as the foundation for a purposeful, productive, and fulfilling life. Succeeding in life takes character, and Lickona shows how irresponsible and destructive behavior can invariably be traced to the absence of good character and its ten essential qualities: wisdom, justice, fortitude, self-control, love, a positive attitude, hard work, integrity, gratitude, and humility. The culmination of a lifetime’s work in character education from one the preeminent psychologists of our time, this landmark book gives us the tools we need to raise respectful and responsible children, create safe and effective schools, and build the caring and decent society in which we all want to live. Hal Urban author of Life's Greatest Lessons Our job as parents and teachers is to bring out the best in our kids. This marvelous book can be of immeasurable help. Dr. Stephen R. Covey author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People What an absolutely marvelous book! Greatly needed in restoring the character ethic in a techno/materialistic-obsessed world. Character is primary greatness; prestige is secondary greatness. Extremely valuable practical resource for every parent and teacher. Great gift book. Thomas Lickona is a developmental psychologist and professor of education at the State University of New York at Cortland, where he directs the Center for the 4th and 5th Rs (respect and responsibility). The recipient of the Sandy Lifetime Achievement Award from the Character Education Partnership, he is the author of Educating for Character, which has been called "the bible of the character education movement." Introduction Portraits of character touch something deep in the human heart. In the award-winning Civil War documentary by Ken Burns, one of the most commented on and moving moments was the reading of a letter written by a Union soldier, Major Sullivan Ballou, to his wife, Sarah, a week before his death at the Battle of Bull Run: My very dear Sarah, The indications are very strong that we shall move in a few days -- perhaps tomorrow. Lest I should not be able to write again, I feel impelled to write a few lines that may fall under your eye when I shall be no more. I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in, the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how strongly American Civilization now leans on the triumph of the Government, and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and sufferings of the Revolution. And I am willing -- perfectly willing -- to lay down all my joys in this life to help maintain this Government, and to pay that debt.... Sarah, my love for you is deathless...and yet my love of Country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistibly on to the battle field. The memories of the blissful moments I have spent with you come creeping over me, and I feel most gratified to God and to you that I have enjoyed them so long....I have, I know, but few and small claims upon Divine Providence, but something whispers to me -- perhaps it is the wafted prayer of my little Edgar, that I shall return to my loved ones unharmed. If I do not, my dear Sarah, never forget how much I love you, and when my last breath escapes me on the battle field, it will whisper your name. Here was a humble man, a courageous man, who loved his family and loved his country and, spurred on by high ideals, did his duty as he saw it without complaining. Tom Brokaw, interviewing veterans of World War II in his best-selling book The Greatest Generation was struck by many of the same qualities. September 11 produced abundant examples of unassuming heroism and sacrificial generosity. We are moved by these stories of character because they show us human beings at their best. They reveal our capacity for goodness. They challenge us to be more than we might otherwise be. And they renew our faith in every child's potential to grow into a person of character. As we begin a new century, we have a sharper sense of how much character matters. We need good character to lead purposeful, productive, and fulfilling lives. We need character to have strong and stable families. We need character to have safe, caring, and effective schools. We need character to build a civil, decent, and just society. We are troubled, however, by the unraveling of the moral fabric of our society. In a recent national poll, nearly three of four American adults said that they believe that people in general lead less honest and moral lives than they used to.1 Says a high school teacher, "Kids today are more cynical than ever about the lack of honesty they see in the adult world." We're troubled by all the ways societal moral decline is reflected, as it inevitably is, in the attitudes and behavior of our ch