Respect for Those We Serve

September is the month that lifts hearts across the nation – especially the
hearts of parents! But for those of us on the inside of schools, it’s also a time of hope. When students and teachers file into their new classrooms and launch a new
school year, it’s hard not to feel a bubble of excitement, expectation, and joy.
Good things are about to happen.

At Core Virtues this month, we’re reflecting on one source of our shared
community hope: respect for all those we serve. The Core Virtues program was
conceived at a time of political division (1992: think impeachment of Bill Clinton)
but from the outset we committed ourselves to non-partisanship. Core Virtues
serves families from across the social, economic, and political spectrum.
Our mission is and has been to cultivate time-honored, widely shared,
consensus-based virtues in the classroom and to eschew contemporary hot buttons that divide us.

We chose this path mindful of the fact that ours is a boisterous, complex, and often messy nation, but that those we serve in this rowdy republic are likely to agree on certain key virtues. (The list of the virtues we promote through literature can be found here.) Respect for our families’ freedom – for their diverse beliefs and identity, and humility about the limits of our own understanding, demand that our schools hew to this truly rich consensus. Hundreds of books on this site exemplify and exalt the virtues that unite us without whitewashing a past
that has sometimes divided us.

Now more than ever, Core Virtues schools commit to respect those they
serve – a rich and diverse cross-section of the American people. The "core" virtues
are what we promote.

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​Here’s what we don’t promote--ten things you won’t find in our Core Virtues K-6 literature-based program:

• No tendentious political agendas
• No age-inappropriate topics
• No books that prematurely sexualize children
• No stories that undermine parental authority
• No assumptions of “right-minded” consensus on unsettled issues
• No denigration of differences
• No focus on sexual orientation
• No cutesy Veggie Tales or Berenstain bears
• No promotion of cynicism
• No substitution of a social agenda for moral excellence

The cultivation of virtue will lead our students down diverse paths and even
to different political conclusions, but our program (while consistent with the
virtues) is respectful of all we serve.  Like the U.S. Supreme Court, we see parents
as the primary educators of their children and schools as a place of common
ground for all – the religiously observant, the professed atheist, the secular humanist, and the indifferent. 

Our nation’s greatest need right now is for mutual respect and civil dialogue. By practicing respect for all we serve, the Core Virtues program aims to promote those ends.  We hope schools and parents find it a source of hope.

Mary Beth Klee