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Character Education for

Public Schools

ince September 2006, Tzu Chi volunteers have been holding
biweekly forty-minute character education classes at Lytle Creek
SElementary, a public school in a poor community of San Bernardino,
California.

Tzu Chi’s education team has developed a full curriculum of ten
themes to be covered each year: respect, responsibility, gratitude, giving,
compassion, courage, contentment, emotional management, filial piety,
and tolerance. They started with classes for first and second graders and
then accompanied these students through the remainder of elementary
school.

As the students grew older, and were facing more complex situations,
volunteers developed materials that addressed these topics in more
sophisticated, age-appropriate lessons. After disasters like Hurricane
Sandy and the earthquake in Haiti, education volunteers immediately
incorporated them into the curriculum and asked the school to hold
a school-wide assembly. Focusing on the topic of Giving, they led the
students to consider, “What do children in the disaster area need right
now? What can we do to help?” Through these lessons, they learned the
meaning of compassion and that “many drops of water come together
to make a river”—even if each student could do very little to help those
affected by disaster, together they could do a lot.

In summer 2013, when the first two classes of first graders to go
through Tzu Chi’s character education curriculum were preparing for
promotion to middle school, the final theme they studied was Giving.
The students decided to tidy up the campus in order to provide a
cleaner environment for the younger students to enjoy. In doing so, they
experienced the joy of giving.

Since 2009, Tzu Chi volunteers have also brought the second-
grade classes of Bing Wong Elementary School, another San Bernardino
school, on a field trip to the Tzu Chi USA Headquarters every year to
offer a condensed curriculum in character education and environmental
protection.
Beginning in 2012, Tzu Chi volunteers have partnered with Charles H.
Lee Elementary in Azusa, California, to provide character education during
morning homeroom. One teacher shared that “Tzu Chi has opened the
children’s hearts. Now they understand how to care for others.” Through
this partnership, the students’ grades have also shown improvement,

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