Honesty

Strength of Heart

Definition: Telling, and not hiding, the truth.

Motto: "I am honest to myself and to others, I try to present myself and my reactions accurately to each person, and I take responsibility for my actions." ¹

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The Strengths Spotlight Podcast Series: Listen to the Institute of Positive Education descriptors of the strengths that include integration strategies.

What it Looks Like and How to Encourage:

  • Using self-talk around having a "personal code" about being truthful.

  • Offer developmental appropriate criteria around what being honest looks like by using the following affirmations:

    • I resist telling the little lies that make life easier.

    • Even if others are cheating, I follow the rules.

    • If I pay for something and get too much change,
      I return it.

    • I say what I think, though others might disagree
      with me.

  • Take a pause in situations to apply the mantra of "what is the right thing to do?"

  • Situational analysis (Teachable Moments)

From Character Lab…

Model It. Kids are more likely to be dishonest after they know they’ve been lied to, even when the lie is small. Therefore, it’s better to avoid talking about a topic rather than lying about it. Remove yourself from situations where you have a conflict of interest, so it’s easier, to be honest.

Celebrate It. Acknowledge when people are honest in difficult situations: “It was hard to hear you didn’t like my story, but I’m glad you gave me candid feedback.” Also notice when others respond well to honesty: “I’m sure you were mad when your brother broke your toy, but I’m proud of you for being gracious after he admitted to it.” Praise ethics over achievement:

“I admire your team for showing good sportsmanship, even when the other players broke the rules to help them win.”

Enable It. When kids admit to doing something wrong, respond kindly. Help them acknowledge the dishonesty, discuss it, and pledge to act differently at the next opportunity. Encourage them to reflect on the importance of trust and find ways to create reminders about these principles. For instance, teachers might write an honor code with their students at the beginning of the school year and post it prominently. And take advantage of the calendar: a new semester, a new month, or even a new day can be a fresh start for honesty.

Unpack the Strength²:

  • What does the strength look like in action?

  • What does this strength feel like in action?

  • When and where can you use it?

  • What is the "shadow side" of this strength?

Teacher Strategies to Personally Strengthen Their Honesty:

  • Grow your awareness of your strengths by making them more visible. Depending upon your learning style and preferred modality, choose tools from your instructional toolkit to apply to yourself. Examples: Audio Recording (have a friend interview you to record your very own "strengths podcast"|Concept Mapping|Outlining|Sketchnoting. Find ways to show how you combine strengths in some situations while also connecting to your talents/abilities, skills, interests, and values.

  • Start with the CL construct of model, celebrate and enable to develop some strategies.

Character Lab Honesty Teaching Strategies and Tips: How to offer age-appropriate versions of the strategies? Note: There are dozens and dozens of tips from Character Lab. These choices are filtered for elementary school and practicality to bring this strength into the culture of one's classroom.

Honesty Secondary Integration Strategies: These strategies are secondary to the PRIME strategies and at times specific to this Character Strength. Italicized strategies denote secondary strategies attached only to a few strengths. Don't forget to go to the Character Strengths introduction page for the PRIME strategies that work across all of the strengths.

  • Character Day - Find ways to participate and elaborate on the activities offered for this annual event.

  • Inward-Outward ³ - Think of ways to exercise your honesty internally for your own wellbeing. Think of ways to express honesty outward to benefit others. Example: In- Being honest with oneself to own up for your actions. Out- Being honest in thoughtful and caring ways to others.

  • Honesty Calendar - Choose a month to post a daily honesty activity for everyone to try. Here is an example for February.

  • Lesson Databases - Find lessons at the Heart-Mind Online resource site provided by the Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education. Find lessons at the Greater Good in Education resource site provided by the Greater Good Science Center (University of California - Berkeley).

  • See-Think-Wonder Thinking Routine - Look to find short videos of social interactions where honesty is displayed. Then can adapt this routine to help students deepen their understanding of steps that they can take to engage their strength of honesty.

  • Sketchnoting to Paint the Strength Picture - Guide your students to make visible their self-understanding of how they currently engage with each strength. A secondary activity is to have your students sketch out new ways they can exercise each strength. We know that going from thinking about ideas to then make them visible often leads to taking action with the ideas. The first step to this strategy is to teach your students about sketchnoting. You will find applications of this tool across all areas of your curriculum. :) Students can take pictures of their sketches to upload to Seesaw to then explain their thinking.

  • Strength Chart - Teachers have lots of ways to bring strengths into the language and culture of their classrooms. A teacher at one of my schools connected to the school's core values by having the names of students on small sticky labels that he stuck to the core values poster. He would place the student's name by the value on the chart in the following ways that are adapted here for the strengths. One technique is for students who want the class to support his/her effort to grow strengths to have his/her name placed beside the designated strength(s). A second strategy is for teachers to verbally highlight students who are applying their strengths at the moment in class. The teacher then puts the student’s name by the strengths on the chart.

  • Superhero Creation - Challenge your students to create a superhero who maximizes this strength. One approach is to have your students draw a picture of the character with a biography that describes how the superhero uses the strength in his/her life. You can provide categories such as physical, intellectual (thinking), emotional, and social as to how the superhero demonstrates the strength. This activity could take the form of playing cards that students then create games around.

  • Other possibilities - Honesty Superhero marketing design projects, Student-created videos highlighting honesty stories, high school IB students using CAS time to produce age-appropriate videos for ES students answering questions of “What is honesty? What does it look like?” “What does it mean to be a good and honest friend?”, older student buddies and their ES partners from time to time share stories of honesty, and incorporate them into co-curricular activities like field trips, after-school activities, assemblies, etc.


PERMAH & Strength Hacks Simple daily strategies for wellness!

  • Brain Breaks - Pause to bring movement and energy into your classroom. Here are a few brain breaks and an assorted listing to add to your collection.

  • Cross Strengths - Which Character Strengths most come into play to support this strength?

  • "How is your/my PERMAH today?" Find ways to bring this phrase into the culture of your class for daily self-reflection and connection with others.

  • Language - Look to use phrases such as "which strength(s) can I engage, dial-up, exercise, apply... in this situation?".

  • Self-Honesty - Pair and Share a story of being honest with oneself. This might be around taking responsibility for one's actions and/or acceptance of one's weaknesses with a growth mindset approach to work on them.

Grade(s) Specific Teaching Strategies: The following ideas are offered as jumping-off points for teachers to build from and adapt to their needs.

EC-K>

  • Lesson Listing - Access teacher-created lessons and those from other providers. (To be developed)

  • Storybook readings, digital media, and share time by teachers and students to build understanding.

  • Use visuals of toolkits and tools engaging language of creating our "strength toolkits" with strengths as tools.

1-3>

  • Grades 1-2> possibly do some storybook readings and use of digital media. Eventually could lead to students writing their own storybooks that involve self-control.

  • Lesson Listing - Access teacher-created lessons and those from other providers. (To be developed)

  • Use visuals of toolkits and tools engaging language of creating our "strength toolkits" with strengths as tools.

  • The weekly mini-goal for teachers and students.

  • Weekly Honesty Seesaw Journal post: will need to develop prompt and potential categories for students to draw a picture of and/or take a photo of their examples of being honest. They then voice-record their response. Include the use of weekly mini-goals and long-term goals.

4-5>

  • Journal - Google Doc or paper version. Use prompts if needed to support reflection about using honesty around school activities, transitions, time in specialist classes, etc. In time work with students to create new prompts. Could be a section of their portfolio.

  • Lesson Listing - Access teacher-created lessons and those from other providers. (To be developed)

  • Student Agency. Work with student ideas to learn about self-regulation and how they can take steps to be more honest.

Assessment:

To be developed in-house. Here are some resources that might offer some ideas to help with the process.

  • At an age-appropriate level work with your students to design a rubric for this strength. Here is a sample rubric for grit written for high school students. Look to do a junior version for this strength. The rubric creator Rubistar can help with this process. Also, keep single-point rubrics in mind as a first step to help your students apply this strength in their lives.

  • Self-Control Scale (Children)

  • Non-Cognitive Persistence Measures (High School Seniors)

  • Surveys: Commercial providers such as Flourishing at School offer surveys and other digital tools to document student wellness. Students aged 10-17 can take the VIA Youth Survey. Student Thriving Index from Character Lab.

  • Visible Thinking: Harvard's Project Zero researchers provide thinking routines and other approaches to help students make their thinking visible. You see many of the thinking routines listed here under the PRIME, SECONDARY, and THINKING ROUTINES sections of this site. You also have several strategies that have students sketchnoting, mind mapping, journaling, etc. to make their thinking visible for reflection and assessment purposes.

Teaching Tools:

Learning About SC:

Websites>

Character Lab


Books>

Parent Engagement:

  • Ask someone to video record the strength in action and publicize the efforts via social media (#----------) and the school website.

  • Family Tree of Strengths: Provide parents with definitions and what strengths can look like in action. Provide a family tree graphic organizer with space for names and the individual’s main strengths. Offer prompts to guide parents to explain how family members and earlier generations lived specific strengths.

  • Have students take their character cards home to teach their parents about their strengths.

  • Strength-based Parenting - Share with your parents the Dr. Lea Waters website which includes resources and information on her book. Here is an article to help with your understanding of strength-based parenting.

  • Teachers send specific reminders to have family talks around the student's honesty actions in school.

  • Teachers offer ideas for parents to share with their children examples of their parental actions that support being honest.

  • Use our various communication pathways to inform parents of their children's strengthening of their self-control.

  • VIA Strengths Survey: Send parents information about the strengths and the English language Strengths Survey that they can take. The results can offer a discussion starting point for families.

Character Lab Research References

Character Lab Image Source

CASEL Image

¹ Niemiec, R. M., & McGrath, R. E. (2019). The power of character strengths: appreciate and ignite your positive personality. Cincinnati, OH: VIA Institute on Character.

² Embedding Character Strengths. Institute of Positive Education. With permission.