Character is ‘Mission Possible’ in Kenyan Schools

I had the great pleasure of speaking with Dr. Peter King’ori, the Director for Character Education Program at the Centre for Character and Leadership in Nairobi, Kenya. Founded in 2016, the Centre works primarily with teachers and school principals, helping them to better understand how to foster character in students by first cultivating it within themselves. Dr. King’ori shared how character is being infused into the Kenyan educational system—and hopefully, one day, across all African nations—along with the character strengths that are most salient to Kenyans, such as integrity and noble purpose. He also told me some delightful stories of how the Centre’s efforts are impacting students.

Vicki Zakrzewski: How does the Centre for Character and Leadership approach character development?

Peter King’ori: We champion the development of good character and servant leadership as a foundation that helps individuals and organizations to flourish. We believe that character is at the heart of what makes us to be human. We cannot be in a position to raise a good society or even good families without having individuals who have good character.

We have a program called CViL, Cultivating Virtues for Leadership, that has a set of eight virtues: noble purpose, humility, gratitude, foresight, empowerment, forgiveness, future-mindedness, and courage. Grounded in a servant leadership framework, CViL promotes cultivation of virtues to support educators in becoming effective and ethical leaders. In our recent publication, findings suggest that CViL is a relevant and feasible leadership development strategy for the Kenyan context.

Also, in our Virtual Coaching and Mentorship Speaker Series, we have trained educators on how to use the PRIMED framework that was created by Marvin Berkowitz from the Center for Character and Citizenship at the University of Missouri. The acronym PRIMED stands for: “(P)rioritization, (R)elationships, (I)ntrinsic Motivation, (M)odeling, (E)mpowerment, and (D)evelopmental Pedagogy.”

VZ: Do these eight virtues reflect traditional Kenyan virtues?

PK: Among the virtues that are being taught in CViL, we added integrity because in our constitutional framework, it’s a requirement for leaders who are working in the public service to model and uphold the virtue of integrity. When people are being vetted for jobs within the public service, the interviewers ask them integrity questions to assess their level of compliance with constitutional requirements. If they don’t pass the test of integrity, then they’re locked out of the job.

VZ: According to research, Ubuntu plays a key role in character development in certain African countries. One researcher writes that Ubuntu “defines the individual in terms of humanity or interdependency with others…and leads to the expression of certain virtues, namely those of hospitality, friendliness, caring, and sharing or compassion and generosity, openness or accessibility to others, sympathy and empathy.” Is Ubuntu part of your focus?

PK: I think the component of Ubuntu philosophy is very common in the continent of Africa, and even in Kenya. In our Civic Engagement and Empowerment Program (CEEP), we train youth, women and community leaders on the principles of good citizenship, national values, and peace building. Peace is not attainable without love and caring for one another. Love goes beyond boundaries—boundaries of tribes, race and ethnicity. With love, people in our diverse communities including school communities are able to embrace each other as brothers and sisters, and even unite together towards achieving a common purpose or vision.

Also, in our Character education program, we encourage teachers to care for one another and work together as a team. Rather than working alone and driving the element of individualism and selfishness, ubuntu manifests in encouraging students, educators, and community leaders to raise their consciousness beyond self-interest and focus on what can bring people together.

VZ: How do you weave Ubuntu into your character framework?

PK: I’m happy to say that Kenya has introduced a new curriculum called Competency Based Education (CBE). A key component of CBE is educating learners to understand, internalize, practice and model values such as love, integrity, peace, social justice and unity.

We are a country that has over 40 tribes, and our main problem that involves the young people and the older people is how to overcome negative ethnicity and embrace diversity as a key strength. Through CBE, learners are now being taught on how to love one another and live together as brothers and sisters within our diverse communities. As an organization, we support the implementation of values education by building capacity of teachers and school leaders on effective strategies for Character education. In the PRIMED framework, Marvin Berkowitz says, “character education is all about relationships.”

So how can educators work together? How can they build relationships—the relationships between the teachers and the principal, the school and the community, teachers and non-teaching staff, and, of course, the teacher and the learner. Marvin says that children bring their lives to school. I argue and say that even teachers bring their issues to school. How can they be mentored? How can they be guided? How can they be connected with each other? In our character education program, we educate on developing healthy relationships across the board and internalization of values.

VZ: What do you consider to be the most important aspect of character development?

PK: Personally, I cannot teach about development of good character if I don’t have the desire of practicing and modeling habits and virtues that enhances my individual character growth. So, the starting point of teaching about good character is making sure that character is growing in me. And when I talk about development of good character, I always emphasize on how we build the intrapersonal relationship within a person before we talk about interpersonal relationships. Because, in our work with educators, sometimes they say “Peter, our students, they have poor interpersonal relationships.” And I argue with them, “Before we talk about your students having good interpersonal relationships, how can we help them to build their intrapersonal relationship?” And that brings in the element of social-emotional learning skills. We educate on developing social-emotional skills such as self-awareness, social awareness, self-management, relationships, and decision-making. These components strengthen development of intrapersonal and good interpersonal relationships among learners and educators.

VZ: How do the character virtues resonate with Kenyan educators?

PK: I would like to say that virtues are universal. During our CViL pilot implementation, I witnessed educators being inspired towards modelling virtues like forgiveness, gratitude, and noble purpose. I recall one of the educators telling me that she had grudges against her colleagues in the staff room, and when she learned about forgiveness, she confessed and said, “I’m leaving this place as a transformed individual and I’m willing to forgive my colleagues in the staff room so that we can work together with harmony and make our school great.”

In our coaching and mentorship program, I have interacted and listened to educators who said that they used to take the teaching profession for granted. They even had a slogan: “Just teach and go home.” If I’m a mathematics teacher, the government has employed me to teach mathematics, nothing else. If I’m a biology teacher, the government has employed me to teach biology, nothing else. But when they reflected deeply on values, they said, “What we have been saying ‘teach and go home’ was a wrong idea.” For example, when they learned how to cultivate gratitude—they were able to internalize the virtue of gratitude and started appreciating the teaching profession.

Also, I have heard educators deeply reflecting on why they joined the teaching service. Why am I a teacher? Why am I a school principal? And some educators are very honest and positive with their reflections as they say, “I went to school, I got a master’s degree, I’m an educator with a purpose, and my purpose is to change lives.” So, when I hear those kinds of testimonials, I get encouraged knowing that we are making an impact in the lives of educators – as they keep focused on pursuing a mission that is greater than themselves driven by noble purpose. A mission to change the lives of learners in the classrooms. Educating for virtues and character is a mission possible.

VZ: How has this work impacted students?

PK: During the CViL pilot implementation, teachers came up with innovative ways of engaging learners in the internalization and practice of virtues. They came up with an “Adopt a Tree and Tag a Virtue” initiative. In this initiative, students plant trees together with a teacher, and then they attach a tag with a virtue on the tree. For instance, a student plants a tree and says, “my tree is honesty,” “my tree is generosity,” “my tree is noble purpose.” So, when the students are watering and taking care of the tree, they also strive to nurture the virtues within themselves.

Here is a true story. A student named her tree “generosity.” She really wanted to show that she believed in the virtue of generosity. She saved and sacrificed her pocket money after a period of time. (In Kenya, students in boarding schools are given pocket money to buy their personal items.) She identified two needy girls within the same school. She took them to the supermarket, and bought some basic necessities for them because she wanted to demonstrate that she believed in the spirit of generosity. The girls were so happy—one of their own taking them to the supermarket and buying goods for them.

In another case, as a nation, we have been having a problem of students cheating in examinations. Students were doing end of term exams in a girls’ boarding school that is located in Nairobi. However, there was nobody to supervise the exam in one of the classrooms. In other words, the teacher was not around. A girl who was sitting next to the window felt like she could cheat in the examination. She removed her note books from the bag and was ready to cheat in the exams. But when she looked outside the window, she saw a tree, it had a tag labeled “honesty.” The tag with the word “honesty” persuaded the girl. She returned the note books in her bag and ended up doing her own work. After the exams were graded, this girl went to the teacher and confessed, “Teacher, I had an opportunity to cheat in this examination, but that tree with the tag ‘honesty’ persuaded me not to cheat. I ended up doing my own work.” That was awesome. As moral educators, when we hear those kinds of stories, we get encouraged to stay focused on the mission of educating for character with a conviction in our heart that nurturing of virtues is gradually taking place in the schools. After all, we become individuals of good character through nurturing of virtues.

VZ: What is your vision for the future of your work?

PK: I’m happy to report that we have started an organization called Association for Character Development in Africa (ACDA). It brings together Templeton World Charity Foundation grantees who were funded through the Global Innovations for Character Development. We have a steering committee comprised of researchers and practitioners in Character education from nine African countries. Our desire is to develop this new network and collaborate with various stakeholders including policy makers and potential funders to collectively promote positive character development in Africa. It is still early, but we are hoping that soon we’ll be having a network of researchers, policy makers, and practitioners who promote character development not only within these nine African countries, but in all African countries. We believe that good character can change the future of our nation and Africa.

VZ: What advice would you give to someone who wanted to start this work?

PK: This work on character education needs a lot of passion and patience, and you have to be driven by purpose because there are challenges along the way. But if your purpose is bigger than what you are trying to do, you’ll be able to persevere until the end. We started small, but slowly and gradually, we are developing a network of educators who understands character education, servant leadership, and human flourishing. My mentor once told me, “Peter, teaching character education is a ‘mission possible.’”

VZ: Any final words you’d like to share?

PK: There is one thing that I learned from my mentor who used to be a vice chancellor of the university. She said this to educators with a lot of motherly love: “Educators, if you work hard to change the character of the students in your classroom, someone somewhere is helping to build the character of your own children. If not, God is doing it on your behalf.”

Read more about What Meaningful Character Education Looks Like Around the World.