Ms. Lacy was a music and chorus teacher at John J. Wright and Spotsylvania Middle Schools where I had the pleasure of being one of her students from 1981 to 1985 when I attended her sixth grade music class and subsequently joined chorus during my seventh grade year. Dr. Likona assets, “The school has to build on the work the family does” in the area of character education. (Lyon, Raising Good Children – Character Education Talk in Singapore 1 [Video file], 2009) Ms. Lacy exemplified Dr. Likona’s call to be a partner with families to build character through instruction, coaching, and as a role model. (Lyon, Raising Good Children – Character Education Talk in Singapore 1 [Video file], 2009) “People don 't care how much you know until they know how much you care.” Although the origins of this quote are undetermined, it is a widely accepted axiom. The members of our chorus …show more content…
Lacy acted as an ethical mentor at a time when we were straining to establish an identity separate from our families. Certainly, her role as vocal coach and choral director placed her in the prime position to influence our performance character development. However, she was perceptive to the additional opportunity to advance our moral and civic character that encompasses the remainder of Seider’s taxonomy of character types. (Seider, 2012, p. 33) Ms. Lacy in fact developed all ten of Likona’s virtues: wisdom, justice, fortitude, self-control, love, positive attitude, hard work, integrity, gratitude and humility. (Lickona, 2003) She used what Likona describes as a “school culture approach that emphasizes creating an ethos of moral and intellectual excellence and stresses character in all curricular and co-curricular programs but doesn’t necessarily name a target set of virtues to which the school formally commits.” (Lickona, 2003) While my parents often spoke of the need to be virtuous, Ms. Lacy assisted me in employing virtues in real world situations and incorporating them into my