Character Education Speech by Student Peter Goelz, Orono High School

"I would like to begin by thanking you all for the opportunity to speak with you today not only in this historic building, but in front of this incredibly special audience. I had the opportunity to accept the Minnesota Promising Practices for Character Education award a year ago and it was an experience I will truly treasure for the rest of my life. As Wanda Sommers Wall said, my name is Peter Goelz, I am a junior at Orono High School and I have over the course of my time in high school, had the privilege of working with some of the most talented, idealistic and creative students I know in creating a program we simply call "Character Counts at Orono High School." It is a program that looks to The Joesphson Institute's "Six Pillars of Character," and it's a program that, without a doubt, has influenced who I am today and has had a positive impact on who we are as a school community at Orono. To this day, I still cannot help but be in awe when I hear stories of, as Ghandi said, "People being the change they hope to see in their world." The work of a few really can make a difference. Which leads me to the heart and soul of not only this message, but also of our program - student led initiative and student leadership.

Ladies and gentlemen, in today's modern, fast paced and highly competitive society we find ourselves in the midst of a Guitar Hero culture, where people want to become rock stars but don't want to take the time to learn how to play the chords. It's amazing isn't it, how infectious, how contagious how defininga simple attitude can be. And, at Orono High School, student leadership for character is defining our school's culture. At Orono, students can articulate a vision of the kind of school community they want to be a part of, and they actively contribute to making that vision a reality. And so, we began with our school's administrative leadership inviting student leaders to step up and take ownership of our character-building program. Our staff and teachers know that during their students' time in high school, the pressure to succeed academically undoubtedly takes its toll, but make no mistake, they also know how important it is, throughout our years in school, to establish solid habits of responsibility, integrity and citizenship — to build a strong personal character. There is an old Yiddish saying that says, "If everyone sweeps in front of their own doorstep the whole street will be clean." In other words, everyone's goal should be not only to survive their high school career, but to thrive and take ownership for educational career. Sounds like something out of the High School Musical trilogy, not like I know anything about those movies...

We began as a small group of students who believed we could make a difference in our school. We designed a student forum to train other students in the six pillars of character. In our first year, 90 students applied to participate in that training forum. They interviewed with members of our faculty who asked questions we had given them, and they made recommendations to us, based on the students' responses. We selected 40 students (the maximum we felt we could accommodate at the forum training) and invited teachers to facilitate that training session — teachers who throughout our years of schooling had been role models and had been a positive influence on our lives at the elementary school, the middle school, as well as at the high school. The support for our forum, from our school and from our district was incredible. We truly could not have accomplished as much as we have without their guidance and support.

As our program began to take shape, we set goals for ourselves and our organization. We wanted to acquire and put to use a common language to identify and define the qualities of character that we valu and to establish and sustain expectations for our school's culture. We identified the strategies we'd use to accomplish our goals — we made a commitment to serve our school and the greater community, to communicate and model the qualities of good character for our peers and for the younger students in our district and to collaborate with our faculty as they incorporated the lessons of character into their content instruction. Today you can see the results of our commitments: You can see them in small gestures our students make each day, in the help we've given to folks in our community as we've seen the need, and in the large events we've sponsored or been a part of in our school and in the elementary/middle school as well.

Throughout our high school's hallways and in every classroom you'll see the logo we designed to communicate our belief that "Character Counts at Orono High School." We took part in our school's in-coming freshmen orientation this year. We were at each doorway on the first day of school, welcoming every student back to Orono with a Character Counts pencil and keychain. We sponsored a nationally renowned speaker who inspired and shared with every OHS student a message of the qualities of character. We were heartened to see over a 110 of our students volunteer their time to make blankets for folks who rely on Mary's Place for a hot meal and place to sleep. We've worked with students in our elementary school who were struggling with bullying and led presentations for student leaders at the middle school who working on a vision of their own. We've worked with our athletic director on our school's expectations for both spectators and participants at our athletic events and school activities. And, we've sponsored events that invite all our students to actively participate in the school they call home.

We even held a dance to raise money for some of the activities we've sponsored — can you imagine, a dance for character? Well, it ended up being one of the best attended dances held at OHS not only all year, but in the history of our school — right up there even with homecoming! We owe this dance's success and the success of our program to the student leaders who run it.

This year, our student leadership has collaborated with members of our faculty in a number of their initiatives to promote good character in our school and we've been fortunate that our teachers really do incorporate the pillars of character in their lesson planning.
Today, we may not be where we want to be — but we are a long way from where we started. And, we continue to work toward making that vision of what we'd like our school to be into a reality. And, while those small acts of character happen every day, often unnoticed by the masses, they have an enormous impact on the climate of our school. Our student leaders continue to work toward those goals we set when we began. Again this year, many more students applied to be part of the training forum, and our trained "student leaders of character" have now grown to more than 100 students who, working in groups, continue to plan activities designed to model character and to make being a part of Orono High School a great experience for all of us.

Among all the qualities of character we've come to recognize at OHS, we also know that life itself is a huge learning opportunity — those opportunities often coming in the form of mistakes or, let's call them "unfortunate decisions." I had one of those just this week, in fact, in the midst of school being in its final lap, meeting with other student leaders trying to schedule in some final activities for both Character Counts and student council, squeezing in a job, a sport and running a campaign for student body president, needless to say, this was a week of incredibly hectic proportions.

I woke up to a text yesterday morning from a senior member of our student council texting me that the previous day’s student body president election was complete and the ballots were counted. We had a winner. Needless to say, this was all the spark I needed to jump out of bed and break all of my personal "getting ready for school records." As I pulled out of my driveway, and I'm not making this up, I thought to myself, "You know, I have never in the four years either my sister or I have been driving to school, together or alone, seen a cop on Willow at 7:30 in the morning." It was about a minute and half later that I was digging around my glove compartment trying to find my license and registration. I had gotten pulled over. And, just like that, I had received my first speeding ticket. As I walked through the doors of our high school, late, the announcements were being read off by our principal and all of a sudden, our current student body president had the mic and was reading the results of the election. Now, I can tell you this story only because I did end up winning student body president and as I made my way to my first hour class, going through a serious battle of emotions, I found myself thinking about the words of one of my teachers that I'd heard this week as well. She said that, "being a good citizen means being better then the laws we are presented, which is why I don't speed anymore." Words to live by ladies and gentlemen. The opportunity to define ones character, you see, can be found in some pretty uncanny situations, student leaders just need to recognize it when it comes their way.

I would like to leave you guys with a poem I wrote in honor of our first ever Character Counts student leadership training. It goes something like this:

It takes strength to complete tasks outside of your comfort zone.
It takes strength to face challenges and obstacles when it would be much easier to simply give up.
It takes strength to be polite to someone that has been rude to you.
It takes strength to be truthful when telling a lie would be much more convenient.
It takes strength to build for the future when we consistently find ourselves living in the past.
It takes strength of character to resist temptations, distractions and peer pressure.
It takes strength to do what's right, even when the right seems wrong.
It takes strength to make an effort when it would be so much easier to make excuses.
It takes strength to do all these things.
However, these are the very steps that leaders take to build their character and the character of those around them.
So, be truthful, do what you know to be right, and put forth the necessary effort when it is called for.
Exceed expectations.
The more you do so, the easier it becomes.
Work on your strengths and you'll become more capable and more successful in everything that you do.

It is, after all, ladies and gentlemen, character that truly counts — at Orono High School and in each of our lives - even when no one is looking.

Thank you very much.