Character Counts

. . . . You hear a lot about old-fashioned values these days about how people used to talk about fairness and responsibility and trustworthiness. Like bread and butter you found words like respect at every dinner table, but that changed. Somewhere along the way we forgot to talk about our values to our kids, our friends and even ourselves. Years have passed and as crime and delinquency searched, we're beginning to realize the need to bring character back to the table. Enter elementary school counselor Mary Jane Aguilar and the six pillars of character. Mary Jane was the first to bring character counts into a school.

Permission to see if behavior could be positively changed at Bel Air Elementary School by talking to children about good character. Well actually that has been one of the most interesting pieces of this is to watch what it did for a faculty as the students and the adults began working on these concepts. It improved the morale of all of us that were involved in it. It raised our aspirations to behave in a better way and the children were then able to look at us and model what we were trying to do. Word of character counts success spread quickly to other parts of the community. Skits performed by the wise fate to reality team group helps local teens internalize the meaning of the pillar words. I believe that Albuquerque does need character counts because those words, those pillar words relate to almost every situation. In fact every situation, every problem that we have in Albuquerque and if people look at those words a little better, almost anything can be solved if you put your mind to it.

Here in the why when we really started a concerted effort on this, I knew it was going to take resources. I knew it was going to take time and a little bit of money. What I didn't realize was how much we were going to get back in things like improved communication in ways that people care for each other. I tell everybody to get involved as quickly as possible. Get on the bandwagon and do something. At first I used to always get in trouble now and I like how they say a nerd almost. A renewed emphasis on character education in our communities and development of character is something that we look forward to with a great deal of anticipation for positive results. We feel strongly that in a youngsters education that this has been overlooked for many years.

That we sort of left it to chance that a young person is going to be involved in lessons and activities and seeing role models that are emphasizing positive character traits. I used to be bad, very bad and I am very, very bad and own. And now I am doing better and I haven't got that much pink slips that I used to before. But character counts isn't just for kids, it's for everyone. That's why a number of local businesses have already gotten involved. We at First Security have been asked to participate in a pilot project with one of the large high schools and we are interested in doing that because we think that it would be a wonderful way of demonstrating the way business can work specifically concretely with the school system. I think character counts can help people in pretty much all aspects of their life whether it be with their family or their job situation or with friends.

It will help them get along better and be more apt to deal with problems that they have in all those situations. Character counts is for everyone. We have introduced it initially at the schools but our young people need to receive reinforcement everywhere they go. So when they talk to mom and dad or to any adult, they are able to get that reinforcement. So the workplace becomes increasingly important as a place for character counts. And I doubt there are many who would argue that we have enough pillars of character being practiced in the workplace in America today. I decided that character counts is something I wanted to be involved in because I spent a lot of my life just talking about how people didn't respect each other and weren't fair to each other. And character counts is a program that I could actually get involved in and help fix that. I think the first thing is if you're in an area where it is being suggested that character counts ought to become a part of your life and that you ought to be active in it and I think you ought to give of yourself and start doing it, join. If it is not being promoted and you think it should, then the scout around and see who's doing it, where can you get involved?

What community has started it and maybe you can be the source of getting it into some organization that you're part of? Well, life is a lot of work. If they don't want to participate, then they can't complain because if you're not part of a solution, you're part of the problem. My belief is, depending on how you use it, you can either put it up as a slogan and no one really attends to it or you can actually work at integrating the language into your environment, whether that environment is your family unit, your child's soccer team, your business location, or your school. I respect, in the workplace, important, caring, responsibility, fairness, all of these are important and there is such a thing as corporate citizenship as well. So the inculcation of the six pillars in corporate America, I think might take some of the edge off of our competitive system in a beneficial way. Character counts in the workplace for the employer will mean using the six pillars of character in the employment application process, in employee evaluation, counseling sessions, things like that.

It will also be a way of dealing with the vendors and providing a set of guiding principles and how to deal with one's suppliers, and it will obviously have implications for dealing with customers. There's a lot of room for individuality in this program. It's not from on high, it's down at the grassroots, people doing it in their schools and the marketplace and the workplaces. You can use the words in anything, and that's really the strength of it, is you can take any situation, apply it to almost any word, and have a greater understanding. Absolutely, I think they're ready. The crime, the gangs, the graffiti, the drugs, the drunk driving, you name it. Pick up the newspaper and you hear it every day.

And it's so sad to hear people talk in little circles about how awful, and it awful, and it awful. Well, let's do something about it. We've made progress, but it's not enough. Every man, every woman, every child needs to hear that character really does count. They need to hear that character counts from you. We've made progress.

We've made progress. We've made progress. Thank you.