After settling on a Virtues Theme of the Year we would select 10 virtues of the month for the school year that support the intention of the theme.
There are various ways that this was done.
- CHOOSING WITH A SMALL GROUP
Working with a Virtues Project™ Club which was a small group of students from all grades, we’d talk about The Theme and then use dot stickers to put on a Virtues Project™ poster. This ‘dotmocracy’ was how we would vote for which virtues we felt would be the most helpful for the theme and would help our students be successful.
Each student would have a number of dots to vote with… 5 or 6 or 10 (you decide).
Then, the ten virtues with the highest votes because the Virtues of the Month for the year. There would be another consultation to decide which virtues would be assigned to which month which is another opportunity to practice cooperation, collaboration and creating meaning with a purpose.
- CHOOSING WITH THE WHOLE SCHOOL
Sometimes the Virtues Project™ Club would choose 20 virtues from the 52 on The Gifts of Character poster using the ‘dotmocracy’. We would then make a placemat with each virtue on it. It was a sheet of foolscap with the Virtue printed on it… we’d print it in both English and Ojibway because we are on Anishinabek Land and supporting the revitalization of the language.
We would put out the placemats with all 20 Virtues the club had chosen somewhere where all the students could vote on them. We did this in the hall in front of the café for a few days. When the Student Council held a ‘Fall Fair’ we’d put them as a booth among the festivities. We would use the dot stickers and all the staff and students who came would get the same number of stickers to use to vote.
Again, the top ten virtues selected were our virtues of the month and after further student consultation the virtues were assigned to their respective month.