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The Webby Pledge: A Student Critique on Character Strong

I still remember it clear as day. It was last year, and I was genuinely excited for Character Strong  to go around our school, thinking it might actually make GCA a better place. But then, almost like it was fate, Mr. Hood has us all stand up raise our right hands and say some simple pledge. I read the pledge. I cant believe it. Are we really saying this? I wait for him to change the slide, but he doesn’t. We all chant, as we all silently lose our respect for this program.

“This is my webby. I promise. To always use my webby when greeting others. One day, this webby, my webby, will help me get a job and make a positive difference in the world. I promise to always use my webby!”

Now flash forward a year later. A sea of purple, white, and very few yellow polos fill the seats of the gym bleachers. The student body all sits, impatient and bored. Many of them either typing away at their phones, hastily doing homework, or whispering away at the top of the bleachers. Every student may be doing different things, but they all have one thing in common: no one is paying attention to the Character Strong assembly.

Character Strong advertises itself to be a to be a tool that helps teachers and staff incorporate social-emotional skills into their weekly curriculum. The program that GCA uses is meant to be for grades 6-12 and is meant to be taught once a week in 30 minute increments, exactly like our new Wednesday schedule. The administration seems happy with this decision of changing schedules. But the overall consensus is that students, and some teachers, are not. But why is that the case? Well, it appears that many students share the same ideas. 

First of all, the student body agrees that with the way they are handling the program, it seems like they deem us to be younger than we actually are. And, with questions like “What cartoon character would you like to snuggle?” in last week’s lesson, or the use of the iconic Webby Pledge, it's easy to see why students feel that way.

One student told us that “Character Strong would be great if we were in elementary school!”. Another said that “we’re in high school (and middle school) not in elementary school… they’ve almost babied us through the program.” Again and again, students feel a lack of respect from this program, making them feel treated like children instead of adults. The so called challenges, like planting sticky notes and smiling in the halls are “a joke [and] they’re treating it like they’re teaching little kids.” The consensus is that students feel the program, although targeted for our age group, is making everyone feel like they are disrespected, seen as immature, and is overall a time waster. And this attitude stems from the fact that the administration does not know what the actual GCA environment is like. 

“I think that Character Strong is a clear representation of the administration at GCA not understanding the needs and wants [of GCA] and trying to force something out of nothing.” GCA, due to its small numbers, is full of students who feel like they are one big family. Everyone is close to each other, whether they are in the same grade or different grades. Character Strong makes the “true underlying problems at GCA”, such as cheating, stress, and overall physical and mental health, seem like they are not important. Instead replaced with the notion that if you smile at someone in the hall, all of your problems will go away. Let’s face it: GCA is tough. And trying to enforce a faux kindness on your students, trying to sweep the real issues under the rug, isn’t going to fix anything. The administration, with their survey last year, must know these problems with Character Strong already and are choosing to ignore them. “He [Mr. Hood] is ignoring our feedback because he wants it to work.” But ignoring the student body until they accept the program wont work. And 30 minutes a week isn’t going to solve the real issues at our school either. One student commented that “character strong just isn’t the right answer to the problems at gca.”

But is there hope for  the sinking ship that is Character Strong? Even with all of the negative opinions about Character Strong, the ideals of the program are still seen in a positive light to some students. A student said, “learning how to interact with people and be confident in yourself and love yourself is so important!”, another said that Character Strong is a “huge opportunity to make a real change in students lives”, but if it was done in a different way. The ideals of Character Strong are important to a person’s growth. And integrating mental health and emotional accountability into the curriculum is something that many students need. If it was done in a different way, one that incorporated GCA’s issues along with treating the student body like adults, maybe Character Strong would succeed. But with the lack of connection from the actual program to our daily lives, Character Strong just isn’t the right fit for GCA.