Character Education Capstones
Many schools talk about character education. Here at The Summit, we can show it to you.
Capstone projects are the hallmark of the Lower and Middle School Character Education experiences at The Summit. To put character into action on behalf of others, students in grades 1-8 engage in cross-curricular, process-oriented research projects that consist of four or more successive component parts that build upon each other and deepen over the course of three to six-months of study. At each grade level, a the research presentation is the capstone experience about each grade-level trait in our signature Character Education program.
Fifth graders assume the persona of a global champion of courage during the Wax Museum of Courage. Sixth graders challenge themselves in a study of perseverance. Seventh graders focus on accountability by creating lesson plans to teach younger students about people who are deaf, blind or living with a genetic disorder. Eighth graders interview people who have suffered injustice or championed justice and write their stories in a book series called Hear My Story: Be My voice.
Our Character Education Program, first introduced in the 1990s, improves students' understanding of what character and leadership mean — and how that translates into how they should behave in school and in life. We believe in teaching values in school, and that's what's at the core of the program. Our lesson plans include teachable models of character.
We believe teaching character is essential to academics, athletics and the workplace. As a Sister of Notre Dame de Namur school, our mission calls us to educate leaders of character who will value and improve the world they inherit.
While our Middle School students examine what courage, perseverance, accountability and justice mean, students at all other grade levels also engage in study of character traits through our signature character education program.