Achiever McBeaver Character Education Launches New Grant Program for Title 1 Schools

In the fall of 2008, the educator design team at Achiever McBeaver radically changed how elementary schools are able to present quality Character Education Programs material to their K-6 students. In an economic climate where many school districts are unable to afford full time counselors for each individual campus - the unique Achiever Radio program allows a school to implement a simple, time friendly, wide reaching, and effective character values program without draining staff manpower or taking much time from the school day. Because the easy to use “cartoon radio” program utilizes the school wide reach of the PA system, a building principal can easily reach an entire campus in 8 minutes or less per week.

Achieving great program success - within just one year - many tens of thousands of elementary students are hearing the Achiever Radio program weekly. However, the educator design team at Achiever McBeaver is set to announce a new grant program geared specifically for Title 1 campuses. With a desire to positively impact children at some of our nation’s neediest schools, the Achiever Radio Character Education grant program will partner Achiever McBeaver and his College Crew friends with up to 12 Title 1 schools per calendar year in order to provide free radio kit materials. The Title 1 program is set to begin in the fall of 2010 – for more information regarding the grant or to apply for your campus – please contact the Achiever Radio team at info@achievermcbeaver.com.

Character Education Must Be Squeezed Back Into The School Day

In a modern era where our young children are learning their core values from TV, rap music, Britney Spears, video games, and SpongeBob Squarepants … it is becoming more important than ever that elementary schools spend a small portion of their week focused on the development of character education skills. Frankly, I refuse to believe that pop culture can do a better job of educating and training our kids than our parents and teachers. For better or worse, those kiddos sitting in classrooms across this country are the leaders and tax payers of tomorrow … and I would much rather that they didn’t reference “Bakugan the Battle Brawlers” for their core ethics training!
But many elementary schools don’t have time to spare for character education programs because of the increased pressures and demands of standardized testing. Testing standards and accountability are important aspects of creating healthy public school systems, but schools are struggling to keep up with the new rigorous academic testing standards. As a direct result, character education often gets squeezed from the weekly schedule.

Character Education Programs That Require Little Time Investment

Instead of squeezing character education out of the school week, schools must find creative and innovative ways to squeeze it right back in! Honestly, I’d much rather have our kids build core values from our teachers and public schools than from Nickelodeon’s iCarly! In fact, there are many character education programs readily available that require little time investment by the school staff – and these programs do a very nice job of reaching an entire campus.

Among the simple, time-friendly, and highly effective ways of reaching a campus with high quality character education programming includes Project Wisdom. This program has been around since 1992 and it focuses on brief vignettes that are read daily during morning announcements over the school PA system. The nice thing about this character program is that it only takes a few minutes per day to implement and requires no additional instruction from the classroom teachers.

Another great way of inserting character education programming into your school week is by playing short cartoon radio shows over the school PA system. Utilized one day a week during morning announcements, teachers aren’t asked to bear the burden of preparing additional lessons or having to sacrifice time from their academic schedules. Furthermore, character education programs like Achiever Radio allow for a school wide reach with the investment of only a few total minutes per week. The Achiever Radio program also helps build weak student listening skills…which is a skill that has been horribly lost in this video rich day and age!

If We Don’t Answer The Character Call … Pop Culture Will

Increased standardized testing and academic accountability are necessary steps for improving our nation’s schools and shaping this country into a global leader in education. But, we simply cannot allow these increased measures to come at the expense of developing students with great moral and ethical character. And if we fail to answer the call and make time in the school day to build character … pop culture will gladly continue to shape those students for us.

Achiever Radio character education program

"Unlike other character education programs, Achiever Radio has been created by classroom educators that know how to maximize the use of time and make lessons both effective and memorable. The Achiever Radio character education program is a simple way to impact an entire campus with very little time investment. Achiever Radio is a wonderful stand alone character program - and makes the perfect supplement to any other character education programs being used on a campus. It has been so much fun watching the kids giggle their way to better character!"

Achiever McBeaver Character Education Begins Production Work On Bullying Prevention Sequel

With the success of the character education series launched in August of 2008, the Achiever McBeaver educator team is set to roll out a new bullying prevention series. Like the original Achiever Radio series, the bullying prevention program will consist of 36 short “cartoon radio” episodes that are to be played weekly and the radio shows will continue to utilize the school PA/sound system for the main delivery of content. The radio shows have been highly successful across the country because of the program’s ease of use, simple delivery format, and time saving nature. In an economic time where counselors, teachers, and principals are stretched to do much more with much less, the Achiever Radio programs are a fun and simple way to deliver school wide character values instruction without having to drain important time or resources from regular classroom instruction.

In the new bullying prevention series, the high energy and extreme craziness returns as resident bad guy Wonkers the Weasel has a whole new set of wicked plans cooked up for The College Crew. In this radio adventure program, Wonkers realizes that in series 1 he didn't do a very good job attacking the moral character of the college kids at Big Forest State, so now Wonkers attempts to break up friendships, damage relationships, and cause one major interpersonal crisis after another! But like always, Achiever and Pester work together to help their friends overcome Wonkers' sneaky and underhanded schemes.

Now, we don’t want to give any plot lines away, but we hear Pester becomes friends with some aliens …even outer space isn’t safe from our nutty squirrel!