Character and Values Workshops: How Collaboration Shapes Our Community

At Rumsey, our core values of honesty, kindness, and respect drive our actions. From the classroom, to the dorm, to the athletic field, we seek to live out these values as we interact with one another.

At the beginning of this school year, we took some time to introduce new students to/reacquaint returning students with our core values. Throughout the first week of school, we created daily character and values workshops for Upper School students. These creative workshops fostered a positive school climate through interactive activities that prompted students to work through scenarios in line with our school mission.

Through the guided space to explore developing character traits, our diversity statement, and the four Rumsey pillars of social-emotional learning, students built a secure foundation to begin the new year. The character and value workshops shared a common thread: the workshops indirectly shaped what community is, what it means to be a member of a community, and how to generate a sense of belonging.

Our faculty contributed their expertise to the conceptualization and development of the workshops. During the week leading up to the start of school, teachers and staff met to brainstorm belief statements relevant to our core values. Throughout the workshops, these belief statements were discussed and reflected upon:

We believe in speaking positively.
We believe in building a positive community.
We believe in understanding our/others’ identities.
We believe in listening to someone’s story (understanding, listening, and empathy).
We believe in collaboration.
We believe in connection—student to adult.
We believe in opportunities.
We believe in individual, family, and community needs.

Positive Speak Workshop

Students built tetrahedrons which were compiled into larger ones, and then added to one larger one. Then they wrote positive messages on the frame. From there, they will create an Upper School-wide tetrahedron mosaic of positive messages. The key takeaways for this workshop were learning to hone curiosity, connections, and metacognition.

Awareness-Forming and Relationship-Building Workshop

Students worked together in teams to create paper towers out of pieces of paper and a small strip of tape. Awareness-forming and relationship-building are two of our four pillars of social-emotional learning. The Rumsey SEL pillars help shape ourselves and our connection to others. By finding connections, either through similarities or differences, students learn to develop tolerance and empathy. The Paper towers activity incorporated positive talk: instead of saying “this won’t work”, students had to think about phrasing their suggestions in a positive manner.

Listening as the Key to Understanding and Empathy Workshop

Students played “The Corners Game,” an activity where students asked simple questions of each other and then grouped themselves in the classroom according to the answer they gave. These groupings allowed the students to see who else has something in common with themselves. The result was a heightened awareness of self and others. The lesson provided students with an opportunity to understand the concept of listening as a tool to understand someone else’s story. By listening to each other and attempting to understand their point of view, students began to build empathy towards one another.

Learning to Question Stereotypes Workshop

Students were given written descriptions of people participating in different activities and separate pictures were displayed in the classroom. Students were allowed to either individually or as a group decide which description was associated with the person, based on generalizations they made from the written descriptions. This stage of making associations based on generalizations led to a deeper discussion about what stereotyping is, why we make associations, and why it has harmful impacts.

Exploring Our Personal Identity

In the Exploring Our Personal Identity Workshop, students searched for the most positive aspects of themselves. The activity reinforced the idea that one can't always judge the quality of a person by their appearance; sometimes people can be appreciated for their differences. Students were given "Climer" cards, a deck of hand-drawn pictures designed to evoke metaphors and imagination. The students then selected three of the cards to reflect upon their own personal character with. They wrote an introduction to who they are, created a collage with the cards, and will share them as a class.

Key Takeaway