Character Development

The Lincoln Academy builds character development into the culture of the school, providing opportunities for scholars to explore ways they can uniquely contribute to the world around them. Scholars and teachers learn not only the names and meanings of character virtues but display them in the school’s thinking, attitudes and actions. Virtues are reinforced everywhere. TLA develops confident and compassionate successful learners and citizens.

Jubilee Framework & Character Strong

The Jubilee Framework is the model used by TLA to plan, coordinate and explicitly teach character virtues through the academic curriculum and daily opportunities and experiences that allow for further discussion and debate of the virtue in context.

Character Strong is a research-based Pre-K through 12th grade social and emotional learning curriculum that focuses on character virtues. Each month, TLA infuses a character virtue from Character Strong into all curricular subject content and teaches the virtue through direct instruction with a focus on citizenship and service.

The virtues listed above are the focus of our work and are found in The Lincoln Academy Proclamation read each morning by all staff and scholars.

Restorative Practices

The Lincoln Academy uses a Restorative Practices approach in building a positive school community. Restorative Practices is a philosophy, not a program. Circles are a strategy used by TLA to support a restorative environment.

The Lincoln Academy uses Circles in the following ways:

Community Building Circles: Circles for the purpose of teaching empathy and self-reflection; developing a sense of belonging through sharing stories and active listening. Examples: morning check-in, classroom issue, values and moral dilemma issue circles.

Curriculum Circles: Circles that enhance learning by providing an interactive forum for scholars to participate in the learning process. Examples: content review, reading debriefs, topic discussions and goal setting.

Repairing Harm Circles: Circles for bringing together everyone affected by wrongdoing or conflict to discuss the situation or incident and repair the harm.

These interventions can produce meaningful improvement in scholar behavior. When there are regular opportunities for everyone in a school to express emotion and exchange feedback, it will build positive relationships and a strong sense of community.