Harvard expert advises forming character of high school students

Guiding young people in the formation of their character and challenging them to acquire skills were key points shared by education expert Ron Berger with PrepaTec teachers.

Berger, who is head of Expeditionary Learning, took part in the 2024 PrepaTec National Teachers’ Meeting, to share his organization’s experience in training young people from public schools in the United States.

From a “speed dating” model for conducting peer feedback to introducing students to an environment simulating a university classroom, Berger explains that the future of education refers to human competencies.

“When you see students who have already graduated saving lives as doctors and in other disciplines, even as a professor, the first thing you remember isn’t their grades but their characters and their more human competencies,” said Berger.

Thus, developing pillars linked to self-discovery, experimentation, self-accountability, and collaboration, among other things, is the guide that should partially steer classroom dynamics.

Quality of character translates into quality work

The head of Expeditionary Learning pointed out that teachers have the responsibility to guide young people through their academic experience, particularly in high school, by laying the foundations of their future careers.

However, the teacher explains that the work doesn’t end there because although technical knowledge is vital to their training and eventually to their professional life, it’s each individual’s character that will really define them, Ron says.

“When our students go for interviews in the future, they won’t just present their work, their strengths, and their areas of opportunity, but also who they are, their character, what makes them tick, and what they lack,” said the speaker.

“Our job is firstly to listen to them and give them the opportunity to grow as individuals who are capable of taking on more challenging tasks, such as understanding their own stats,” he added.

According to Berger, understanding themselves in this way under the guidance of a teacher allows students to change their mindset and be better prepared for higher education, because they stop defining themselves by exams and assignments.

Therefore, the professor explained that focusing students’ learning on doing quality work according to their individual needs and as a community will provide them with multidimensional training regardless of what they study later.

Feedback as mutual dialogue is key

Usually, Berger said, young people tend to view feedback as having a negative connotation, especially if it’s given in a disorganized way and without some type of follow-up for improvement.

The challenge becomes more difficult if, in turn, there isn’t solid compilation of data and knowledge on students or if they don’t know how to interpret their areas for growth and the type of obstacle that presents.

However, Ron stresses that communication in the classroom must be 100% reciprocal so that the feedback process can be successful, giving students a safe space to provide constructive criticism in return.

The other addition to this process is to provide a set, semi-structured time for the students themselves to give feedback to their peers with the use of a rubric and fixed time slots.

Ron calls this exercise “speedback”, whereby students change places to read and discuss their classmates’ work based on a rubric provided by the teacher.

“We often underestimate our students, thinking they’re going to have an apathetic attitude or that they’re not going to take this exercise seriously, but we must remember that young people are very social and capable beings,” he argued.

“If we give them the opportunity to discuss and collaborate with other students as if they were already in a university environment. The students are going to act according to what we ourselves expect of them; we shouldn’t underestimate them,” he stressed.

The EL Education model can be adopted successfully

In order to place students at the center of the curriculum, Berger’s EL Education model initially helps to understand students across three dimensions: Character, Mastery of Knowledge & Skills, and High-Quality Student Work.

“This model places students in charge of their own learning in the sense that they’re held responsible for their successes and failures, based on the quality shown in their work, which gives them empirical experience to learn from,” he explained.

“We’re talking about creating accountability that isn’t limited to the student with the teacher but to themselves, their peers, and their local communities,” the speaker added.

The professor also emphasizes the importance in this model of nurturing positive relationships inside and outside the classroom as a driving force for projects involving empirical, valuable learning that highlight the students’ human character.

To illustrate the success of this model, Berger shared three case studies with favorable results from high schools in Springfield, New York, and Washington, D.C.

In all three cases, it has been seen how using a project-based teaching approach and letting students partially guide the conversation within the classroom is reflected in a more active engagement of young people with the class regardless of the subject.

“The vision for the new educational models focuses on engaging students in challenging themselves, that’s the main thing to take into account,” concluded the speaker.

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