Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Character Education Class Is Enacted

Gurdon Primary School has implemented a Character Education class this year.

Melissa Franklin, GPS counselor, spoke to the Gurdon Rotary Club about the program at its regular meeting Thursday, Aug. 24.

Franklin said character education is an offshoot of the Smart Start program instituted by Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and the Arkansas Department of Education.

Smart Start, she said, is designed to have fourth grade students at the fourth grade level when they enter the fifth grade.

Character education, though, works to help students develop the attributes they'll need to get a job later on. These attributes include: honesty, loyalty, trustworthiness, courage, contemplation and adaptability, along with respect and responsibility.

Franklin said there was a time in our history when such characteristics were shown on television with such programs as "Andy Griffith", "Ozzie and Harriet" and "Leave it to Beaver".

They were also in textbooks students used in school, with even more reinforcement coming from their families at home.

"We have went from "Ozzie and Harriet" to Beavis and I won't say the other name," she said.

Today's textbooks contain no references of character issues, and few are being taught in the home.

Because of this, she said, Arkansas's primary schools are focusing on these issues.

"We need to do more at home and in school," Franklin said. "Home is the first place children should learn about character, with school second. Schools do have a responsibility, too."

Now, though, she continued, children have no background for learning about positive characteristics, but this is slowly changing.

According to Franklin, publications being sent to schools contain more and more about character, so, she reasoned, it shouldn't be long before these issues show up in textbooks again.

For fun, Franklin read the Rotarians a teacher's contract from 1923. Today's contracts, while more complicated, are not nearly as strict as they were then.

Under the contract, teachers (termed "miss") agreed not to get married, or the contract would be null and void.

They could not keep company with men and had to be home between the hours of 8 p.m. and 6 a.m., unless attending a school function.

Teachers then couldn't "loiter downtown in ice cream stores," nor could they leave town without getting permission from the chairman of the board of trustees.

In addition, they were prohibited from smoking cigarettes (the contract could be voided if they were caught) and couldn't drink beer, wine or whiskey.

Teachers weren't allowed to ride in a carriage or automobile with any man other than a brother or their father, couldn't dress in bright colors, dye their hair, had to wear two petticoats and their dresses couldn't be more than two inches above their ankles.

The contract also required teachers to be their own maintenance personnel and keep the classroom clean.

They weren't allowed to use any form of makeup either.