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Character Education
Interns Learn to Teach Character Education Curriculum
Written by Sam Stoia
Friday, June 20, 2008
Practical aspects of traveling to another country, gaining competence in UPF's character education curriculum, and creating lesson plans challenged prospective peer counselors during a weekend training seminar.
In 2007, the Universal Peace Federation launched its Peer Counselor Intern program. A total of thirty college students went out to seven countries and gave character education lessons in schools and communities. The program is expanding to include twenty countries in 2008, and a new group of interns are preparing to head out during the summer months.
On the weekend of April 11-13, UPF held a two-day, in-depth character education training at Camp Innabah, just outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
The focus of the weekend was to prepare all new interns for their volunteer work abroad. Alan Saunders, the director of the UPF Office of Character Education, was the main presenter for the weekend.
First, Mr. Saunders introduced the interns to the Discovering the Real Me lesson series, which is the main UPF character education curriculum. Interns will be using this series, which has lessons that tackle moral issues faced by young people from ages five through eighteen, to give character education presentations abroad.
Later, two interns from last summer, Abigail Sayre and Julia McKenna, spoke about their experience volunteering in the Dominican Republic. Ms. Sayre and Ms. McKenna talked about the practical aspects of going abroad as well as how to create a lesson plan.
Ms. Sayre and Ms. McKenna's stories are very interesting because in order to teach in the Dominican Republic, they had to create and give lessons in Spanish. All in all, they said, it is important to expect the unexpected while teaching abroad.
To put the curriculum to a more practical use, Mr. Saunders had each intern prepare a five-minute presentation to give them experience with creating a lesson from any one of the twelve volumes of the Discovering the Real Me series. Topics ranged from how to be responsible, how to overcome anger, all the way to money management for teenagers.
By the end of the training, interns had received the knowledge necessary for presenting abroad, but another important aspect was the connection formed between interns during the weekend. Like-mindedness and similar goals seemed to bring interns together in their efforts to learn the curriculum and gain knowledge from those who had previous experiences in teaching character education.
Interns will be going out this summer to locations in the Caribbean Islands, South Pacific, Africa, and South America. One thing that is for certain is that they will all come back with new experiences and their own unique stories to tell.
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