It was a picture you might see a thousand times on Facebook.  A grandfather with his young grandson sitting at a table smiling at the camera.  Among other things, the caption proudly read something like this – “this 3 year old already knows about John Wayne and the Cubs”.  If you know this grandfather, you know that he is a HUGE John Wayne and Cubs fan, so of course he is passing on his love for these two things to his grandson.  Such little things, but to this man, important things, things he has a passion for.  And it got me to thinking, what kinds of things are we passing on to the next generations and are they important?

Some things aren’t really important at all.  Like my love for hash for instance.  It was something my dad loved.  I passed that on to my son and now he is passing on to his foster son.  Completely silly and totally unhealthy, but it gives us a connection that we laugh about.  On my husband’s side of the family, it might be the way they open Christmas gifts from youngest to oldest.  His grandmother did it, his mother, we did it and now my kids do it.  These little things become our traditions, something we have in common as a family.  And those traditions become hard to break because it brings us a sense of belonging and familiarity.  It’s a comfort zone for all of us because we know what to expect, and it brings back fond memories of days gone by.

So what about those things that are even more important to us?  Like music, for instance.  I have wonderful colleagues in music whose children have also gone into the field and sometimes I have this guilty feeling, as though I didn’t push my kids hard enough or make them work hard enough in music that they wanted to be musicians themselves.  Because music is what we do, every day, all day it seems.  Although my sons all love and appreciate music, it’s not something they wanted to pursue as a career.  Is it enough then that we passed on the appreciation for but not the passion for doing?  My middle son has thanked us for letting them be individuals and deciding for themselves what they wanted to do.  And maybe that’s what we passed on to them in this case; that people are unique individuals and something as important as choosing their life’s work should be following their passion, not mine.  I’m hoping that is the case.

But let’s go back to John Wayne again for a minute.  This is a man who was born in small town Iowa, became an actor, made some movies and died almost 40 years ago.  And yet when you search for him on google, a lot of stuff pops up.  Why? Because there are enough people who like him who have passed that down to others.  Probably they introduced him to others through his movies which created more fans.  Just an ordinary man whose job was to interpret characters on film, and yet 40 years after his death, he still lives.  Somehow he touched people in such a way that they want to share that feeling with others.  And why him and not someone else of his era?  Maybe it had to do with what he represented.  Like the Cubs, the personification of perseverance.  So we continue to pass down our love for the underdog because of that character trait.  Or in our house, the Kentucky Wildcat basketball team, which strives for hard work and excellence.

Then I got to thinking, if passing on things like a passion for the Cubs or John Wayne or music is important for the next generations, how about character?  Not just the representation of character, but actual character building? I’ve been reading that we’re not so much a society that appreciates character anymore but instead, we look for personality.  Personalities are shallow but character runs deep. And personality can only get you so far.  Then people start to figure out what’s real and what’s not.  However, if good character is passed down, those are the things that last a lifetime.  Honesty, integrity, kindness, respect for others, responsibility are the kinds of things we should be focused on when passing on family traditions/traits to the next generations.  These things make a better world for everyone.

As teachers, we try to teach these character traits to our students.  However, in a personality driven world, is it a losing battle?  It’s not like they don’t understand what good character is, but they don’t feel the need to live it.  If they can get away with something that will benefit themselves, even if they know it’s wrong, they’ll do it.  And they’ll tell you that.  We can see what emphasis on personality versus character has done in terms of our political leadership.  Real leaders are made from those with excellent character or at least those who are working on their character, not those who are trying to impress others with their personalities.  The problem being that when you see a person with personality you immediately have an opinion; they can talk you into believing anything.  You don’t have to get to know them.  To know a person has integrity, for instance, you really have to get to know them.  It’s taking time to develop those relationships.

And where does this character teaching start?  With me.  Because if I don’t live as an example of good character, I can’t really pass it on.  Because a person of good character touches people in such a way that they WANT to be like them.  We can’t talk them into it, we have to LIVE them into it.  So while we’re passing on our love of the Cubs, John Wayne, music or Kentucky Basketball, let’s remember to be an example of good character as well and turn our next generations into people of character instead of personalities.