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TCC Students to Assist Middle Schoolers With Character-Building Program

Posted on: Wednesday, 20 July 2005, 18:01 CDT

Honors students at Tulsa Community College's West Campus will give a hand to fifth- and sixth-graders at Liberty Public Schools this fall.

Thanks to a $5,000 grant from the Tulsa Community College Foundation, the students will participate in an ethics program called Building Character.

Melinda Smith, TCC ethics and economics instructor, wrote the grant proposal to fund the idea geared toward educational enrichment for the Liberty students.

Smith thought the Liberty students might be more receptive to being taught ethical values from students closer to their age and decided to use honors ethics students to assist in the program.

The TCC students will make presentations to Liberty students about ethics and values when school resumes in the fall. Each TCC student will select an ethical virtue and develop and present an interactive learning experience for Liberty students. Examples of values and virtues that students may select include honesty, responsibility, self-control and leadership.

"For several years, I have been greatly concerned about the apparent decline or deterioration of morals, values, and ethics in our society. Ethics is my passion and the opportunity to work with students is a career I cherish," Smith said. "The reward for me is when students realize that the decisions they make on a daily basis impact others, either positively or negatively."

Smith said she saw the need for the program in Liberty. The community school selected also has a significant percentage of potential first-generation TCC college students, Smith said.

"My mother teaches out there, and my great-grandfather was a janitor there for many years," she said.

Smith said she would like to use the Building Character model developed this year for other schools in the future.

"Whether teaching at church or at school, it has been my experience that the teacher, not the student, is the one who learns the most. By teaching desirable ethical virtues to fifth- and sixth- grade students, the TCC students will involve themselves in the learning process and should have more knowledge as a result of the responsibility to teach the subject to others in a creative manner," she said.

Kent Holbrook, superintendent for Liberty Public Schools, said the district will also work with TCC to obtain scholarships for students to attend the TCC Attend College Early Program. The program is for high school juniors and seniors who meet certain ACT, SAT and GPA requirements. They can attend TCC and receive six credit hours of free tuition each semester.

Holbrook said the school is applying for a $600 matching grant from the Tulsa Community College Foundation that would allow six students to enroll in a three-hour course, with tuition, fees and books paid.

"You always want a program like this. Anything that can help your student," he said of the Building Character and ACE programs.

Liberty has a student body of approximately 600 students in prekindergarten through 12th grade, and approximately 90 fifth- and sixth-graders. Holbrook said the school's budget was hit hard recently with the rise in gas prices.

"We spent $10,000 more this year than last year. This really hurts a small school system," he said.

Source: Tulsa World

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