Passing the Torch and Celebrating Friends

What a joy to be leaving Core Virtues in such good hands!  As of September 2024, Hillsdale College’s Gabrielle Lewis will become the new director of the Core Virtues program. She brings to the task years of elementary school teaching and administrative experience, along with expertise in virtues-based character education.  On the staff of Hillsdale College as Teacher Support Lead, Gabbi has focused on classical pedagogy, professional development, and relationship building among a network of teachers who pursue classical education.
 
 “Classical education” and virtues-based character education are closely related.  Classical education prizes a strong liberal arts foundation for its students, and has as its objective the cultivation of moral and intellectual virtue.  Most classical schools have not had “virtue” as a subject of study so much as an ethos and goal. But the Core Virtues literature-based approach to character education, which spotlights a virtue a month based on the cardinal and transcendent virtues, is wholly compatible with their pursuit of the true, the good, and the beautiful. 

As many of you know, the Core Virtues program has been employed fruitfully in non-classical schools as well. These may utilize such content-rich programs as the Core Knowledge Sequence or Hillsdale’s own K-12 Program Guide. Core Virtues schools may employ curricula developed over time in their own schools. Friend of the program, Matthew Post, explained how and why our program could be used effectively in various types of schools in his introduction to our 2022 volume.

Core Virtues emphasizes the dignity of the human person and his/her potential for excellence. Early on in our work we pointed out that “not a child in America wakes up in the morning asking him or herself how shall I behave today? Their question is who shall I be like? And they have a thousand dramas playing out in their imaginations before breakfast.” Our literature-based approach is intended to ensure that those fertile imaginations have fine examples to draw from.

September is the month we celebrate friendship, as well as respect and responsibility. So it's fitting to celebrate the friends of this approach, whose keen insights led to the formulation and development of what at first were vague ideas. They have earned my everlasting respect.  

For the program's philosophical and psychological framework, I am deeply indebted to William Kilpatrick, whose path-breaking 1992 book Why Johnny Can’t Tell Right from Wrong focused on the need to ignite the moral imagination through stories. When I met him at the 1994 Core Knowledge Conference, I felt as though I were meeting a superstar (and still do).  He was kind enough to write the preface to our book.  Former Secretary of Education William Bennett took up Kilpatrick’s call for telling those stories with his 1993 Book of Virtues, and we thank him for his work and endorsement. 

The teacher friends who contributed to this work are too numerous to mention, but I’ll try.  At newly-formed Crossroads Academy, Betsy Warren was the invaluable friend and enthusiastic classroom advocate.  Her contributions lasted well into the 2020s, when she served on the board of the Core Virtues Foundation and co-presented at professional development sessions.  Other Crossroads teachers and librarians who provided excellent feedback in the early years were Karen Kilibarda, Vicki Price, Kathryn Fennell, Lisa Kaija, Amy Stringer, Joanne Dakai, Libby Robbie, and Paula Tsai.

Our work in the early years was facilitated by Rev. B.J. Steinbrook, Director of the newly-founded Challenge Foundation, which provided a grant to develop and publish this work.  I am ever thankful to ally and friend B.J.  And I am grateful to E.D. Hirsch, Jr., who spotlighted our efforts at Core Knowledge Conferences over the years. E.D. Hirsch, Jr. and his ongoing writings are an inspiration for those of us who aspire to excellence in education. Dear friend Patricia Farnsworth ensured the publication of Core Virtues in its step beyond spiral-bound.  Patty, as Director of the Link Institute, was a tireless advocate of content and character in the schools and eagerly publicized the work at conferences.  Core Virtues is non-sectarian, but Patty even brought it to the attention of Pope John Paul II, who blessed it at a private audience in May 2000.

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Mary Beth Klee, Wendy Miller, and Jean Behnke

The Core Virtues program was privileged to find another lifelong friend in Jean Behnke, Harvard-educated Head of School at Crossroads Academy for fourteen years.  Her insights into the synergy of content and character – especially as it related to the needs of a developing child – made her an invaluable asset and co-presenter at professional development conferences.  When she and I visited the outstanding Challenge Charter School in Glendale, Arizona, the two of us made yet another friend in Principal Wendy Miller, whose enthusiastic implementation of the program has resulted in an astonishingly good school.  Jean Behnke served on the Board of the Core Virtues Foundation until recently – along with other friends Kevin Ryan, John Cribb, and Javier Valenzuela. 

As we developed a full-blown website, our very best friend was Eileen Klee Sweeney, the creative and tireless graphic designer who assembled our magnificent site and is (incidentally) my dear sister!  She was an avid pursuer of new literary offerings, as well as first rate website designer/manager, and designer of the expanded 2022 edition of Core Virtues.  When Eileen stepped out of that role after years, we were bountifully blessed with the talents of Emily Lehman, who a year later became Emily Starr Kwilinski.  Emily completed her doctorate in literature as moral narrative while serving as Core Virtues Art Director and Website Manager.  She got us posting daily on Instagram and Facebook and designed our latest publication, Telling Our Stories. She too is an avid reader and promoter of children’s literature. 

Our newest friends of the program come from Hillsdale College.  But in a way, they are not so new.  Patty Farnsworth and I had lunch with Larry Arnn in 2000 just before he became President at Hillsdale, and made sure Hillsdale got a spiral-bound copy of the book.  For years we would supply Hillsdale-inspired schools independently. Professor Jeff Lehman at the Augustine Institute suggested that I contact Hillsdale when seeking a university-based home for the program. Thanks, Jeff!

I was thrilled that Dr. Kathleen O’Toole, Assistant Provost for K-12 Education at Hillsdale, saw the program as a perfect fit for their work.  The Core Virtues program came under the stewardship of Hillsdale College on November 1, 2023.  The Directorship passes fully to Gabrielle Lewis this month.

I am grateful to all these friends for helping America’s children and schools in this rich, meaningful, and ever-more necessary way.  1991-2024:  that’s a thirty-three-year life for me at the Core Virtues tiller.  It’s a good time to put this work into new and ready hands.

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- ​​Mary Beth Klee