PPP198: The Etching of Character

Part of the professional development of the staff at the charter school where I teach includes a wonderful lecture series from Hillsdale College.

A primary focus of Hillsdale College and their academies, and the school where I teach is developing character in our students. Some of the character virtues we teach at school are self-control, integrity, honor, gratefulness, compassion, wisdom, humility, justice, and courage. I spotlighted a composer to share with the students who demonstrated these qualities.

One composer I highlighted when we studied compassion was George Frideric Handel. You can learn more about his compassion in episode 122.

Studying great people from the past and the choices they made helps us learn to make difficult choices for ourselves.

In the Hillsdale College lecture, Dr. Larry Arnn discussed the character virtues of courage and temperance. My condensed definitions of these two traits is courage – harnessed fear, temperance or self-control – harnessed pleasure.

Piano students must harness their fear when the learn new music that seems too hard or when they perform in a recital or in a piano event. They must harness their pleasure when they would rather do anything else but practice their piano music.

Parents can help their children develop a balance of courage and temperance through those 1000 choices Aristotle talked about.