Character International, Inc is a nonprofit initiative to promote character education among youth and young adults in the global community with special emphasis in Ukraine, Russia, and Eastern Europe.
American teachers are trained to go and teach Character for Kids® seminars to teachers and university students who are training to become teachers. Through a series of seminars teachers and future teachers learn the developmental process of acquiring moral values and how to instill these traits in children. There is particular emphasis on the teacher being a model of character.
Throughout the global community of nations, thoughtful leaders and educators are becoming concerned about the lack of character development in children during the formative years. There is general agreement among scholars that good character traits are not innate and must be acquired through teaching and practice. Ideally, this teaching is done in the home environment and reinforced in the schools. However, due to societal changes around the world and the decline in morals, many children today are not receiving adequate moral training and guidance at home. Consequently, it is becoming necessary for educators to respond to this challenge. If we want our future world to be one of peace and prosperity, teachers must be equipped to teach and model good character.
We are committed to teaching and reinforcing eight basic universal tenets of good character:
Honesty - Refraining from lying, cheating, and deceit.
Trustworthiness - Being dependable, reliable, and faithful.
Respect - Considerate, and courteous behavior.
Responsibility - Being accountable for one's choices.
Caring - Quality of showing empathy, sympathy, and kindness.
Courage - Facing challenges with confidence and resolution.
Fairness - Justice, impartiality, and tolerance.
Hope - Desire with expectation of fulfillment.
Our goal is to train children and help them to grow into adulthood with good character and ethical values. This is accomplished by training teachers in the methodologies of teaching good character traits to children. President Theodore Roosevelt once said, "To train a student in mind and not in morals, is to train a menace to society." We strongly agree with President Roosevelt’s statement. If our world is to be a better place in which to live then we must educate our children and instill in them good moral and ethical values.
American teachers are trained to teach the Character for Kids® seminars. They then become part of a team which then travels to Ukraine and other Eastern European countries to teach student teachers, proficient teachers, professors, and administrators in selected universities. In some cases seminars are presented to faculties of local public and private schools. Please be advised that all our volunteers are responsible for raising or providing their own funds for travel and related expenses.
This non-profit humanitarian venture was officially inaugurated in September 1999 at Volgograd State Pedagogical University in Volgograd, Russia. Since that time scores of free seminars have been conducted in universities and schools such places as Vilnius and Klaipeda, Lithuania, Tallinn and Tartu, Estonia, Barnaul and Volzhskiy, Russia, Szeged, Hungary, Donetsk, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Kiev, Ukraine.
We are pleased with the acceptance and expansion of the Character for Kids teacher training program. Continued growth and development are envisioned as the news about this project spreads to other countries and cities of Russia and Eastern Europe.
We believe that it is a worthy cause to facilitate educators in promoting the development and implementation of character curriculum in universities and schools. Character International Inc. is dedicated to equipping educators of today and tomorrow with knowledge and a thorough understanding of our character-focused curriculum. This training format serves as the catalyst that will impact the child, the family and the community as a whole.
Training for U.S. teachers is usually conducted once or twice each year. Most often, we meet at a convenient location in Dallas, Texas. We are happy to consider conducting the training in other cities or locations if it is more feasible to do so. The training itself is free and is conducted during a two-day week-end period in a relaxed and casual atmosphere. Everyone who has gone through the training has expressed that they enjoyed the experience. It is a great time of learning and building new friendships.
Prerequisites:
Be a person of high moral and ethical values.
Complete a two-day training course.
Agree to travel to Russia or Eastern Europe to conduct seminars
Be assigned to a team.
Be scheduled to travel to a selected city (usually for two weeks).
Help present two, 3-4 day seminars in a teacher training university or school.
Most foreign seminars are conducted during the autumn and spring months. This is primarily due to severe winters and the fact that universities and schools are closed during the summer months.
Please email us for more information.
Since the beginning of the Character for Kids program hundreds of students have participated in our seminars. During this time we have observed changing attitudes among students, faculty, and administrators. The way students view themselves and how they react to daily challenges and circumstances are being changed for good. We are greatly encouraged when we think about how these teachers and future teachers will be influencing our future world by teaching the CFK curriculum to children in schools.
In 1999, the students at Volgograd State Pedagogical University took the initiative (on their own) to form a Character Development Trainers' Association. The association was formed to: • Promote the understanding of CFK's eight universal moral values and the many roles that education plays in the shaping and perpetuation of cultures, the development of mutual understanding between nations and influencing the lives of individuals in a changing world. • Improve opportunities for citizens of the world by fostering an understanding of how a person's character is formed in early childhood by parents, teachers, community, and the educational environment. • Increase cross-cultural understanding through the educational process of the study of character development and practices that affect individual and social well-being. Note: This association planned and conducted various kinds of worthy projects within the university and in the city of Volgograd.