Heartwood Institute: Benefits of Heartwood for the Middle Grades

The Benefits of Heartwood for the Middle Grades

Children in the middle grades have so many different needs and abilities. It can be challenging to create programming for them. In particular, when the goal is to help them think about choices in terms of right and wrong, it is tempting to think there is little that can be done to address values across the spectrum of cultural differences and life circumstances.

Heartwood has created a program, T.R.U.E. Choices, to assist educators with the challenge of character and ethical development. T.R.U.E. Choices offers a two-part strategy:

A simple framework of universally valued ethical attributes on which to base conversations.
A set of readings with rich ethical content, in which people face challenging situations and difficult choices. These are case studies, often of young people, struggling with real situations and choices. The curriculum is designed so students can engage with the characters and consider their dilemmas. They will grow morally by discussing the situations, empathizing, and reflecting on related issues in their own lives.

The middle school grades (6^th, 7^th, and 8^th) are a time when students face many new challenges and choices with ethical dimensions. This period of early adolescence has been called the “last best chance” to positively influence young people, to send them off in a healthy and fulfilling direction that will shape their lives to come.¹

Middle grades students often challenge or defy authority. They retreat into rejection of all adults. They take heart-stopping risks. At the same time, there is good news about young adolescents. They:

want to understand themselves and the world,
are curious about anything and everything,
have wide-ranging interests,
are beginning to think critically about values,
are increasingly able to look outside themselves,
welcome opportunities to grapple with hard problems,
want to understand big ideas and ethical issues.

These wonderful, complex young human beings—and their teachers—are the people the Heartwood Institute wants to touch with T.R.U.E. Choices.

1: Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development, 1989

When you introduce T.R.U.E. Choices to a class of middle grade students for the first time, make the following points:

This is not a typical middle school curriculum! It will challenge you to look at critical, grown-up issues through the lens of a framework of universal attributes.
Introduce and define the attributes of Courage, Loyalty, Justice, Respect, Hope, Honesty, and Love. These attributes are the true foundation of human communities around the world and can help students make good choices in their own lives.
Students' participation is key to the success of the program. They will be building their own and other's understanding of the issues and attributes through discussions and activities. They will also report to the class when they research important aspects of the readings.