{"id":319,"date":"2014-07-05T21:27:26","date_gmt":"2014-07-05T21:27:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cohort21.com\/ckirsh\/?p=319"},"modified":"2019-08-19T23:39:52","modified_gmt":"2019-08-19T23:39:52","slug":"breaking-into-the-heart-of-character-by-david-streight-a-book-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/2014\/07\/05\/breaking-into-the-heart-of-character-by-david-streight-a-book-review\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Breaking Into the Heart of Character&#8221; by David Streight (a book review)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><a href=\"http:\/\/cohort21.com\/ckirsh\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/28\/files\/2014\/07\/jpeg.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-338\" src=\"http:\/\/cohort21.com\/ckirsh\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/28\/files\/2014\/07\/jpeg-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"jpeg\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>This text was as useful as it was brief. This 104 page manual on supporting character development in schools was a swift, enjoyable read that helped refresh my perspective on teaching and mentoring young people. Truthfully, I might not pick it up off a shelf had it not been on our summer reading list. I might have thought that\u00a0\u201ccharacter education\u201d was not a focus professionally for me right now. Or I might have said to myself that there surely must be more important books to read on my precious summer days (exactly the same rationale has made me put off reading Harry Potter, actually). But David Streight\u2019s book helped reconfirm why I am in\u00a0this profession: the hearts of young people matter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">I spend a significant amount of time <a href=\"http:\/\/cohort21.com\/ckirsh\/2013\/10\/11\/what-is-the-purpose-of-school\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">wondering what the point of school really should be (and really is) <\/a>and what roles a teacher and a student play in an ideal situation. David Streight makes a great case for why character education really does matter (or really\u00a0should matter): our minds are not disconnected from our hearts or our hands. We are\u00a0educating whole people and,\u00a0\u201cWhen the needs are effectively filled, learning and memory are more efficient (Neimac &amp; Ryann, 2009; Reeve et. al., 1999; Reeve, 2006)\u201d (p. 23).<\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\">It was hard to not see myself and my colleagues in the stories offered on these pages, or find myself nodding in sympathy with Streight\u2019s message. The wisdom offered in &#8220;Breaking Into The Heart of Character\u201d is so straight-forward and logical that I wanted to find a time machine and give the first year teacher version of myself a copy to avoid some of the obvious pit falls and set backs that most fresh teachers make.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\">Or better yet, this book should be on every new teacher\u2019s reading list to prepare for the task of teaching young people how to be human. If you know a friend who is starting to teach, do them a favour and put a copy of this book in their hands. They will thank you for it&#8230;or maybe their students will instead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This text was as useful as it was brief. This 104 page manual on supporting character development in schools was a swift, enjoyable read that helped refresh my perspective on teaching and mentoring young people. Truthfully, I might not pick it up off a shelf had it not been on our summer reading list. I &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/2014\/07\/05\/breaking-into-the-heart-of-character-by-david-streight-a-book-review\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;&#8220;Breaking Into the Heart of Character&#8221; by David Streight (a book review)&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":338,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,81,82],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-actionplan","category-blog-post","category-book-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":880,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319\/revisions\/880"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/teachingtomorrow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}