What are character strengths and how do I teach them? As I began my quest of learning about character strengths, I learned that any study of character strengths and virtues must begin with gratitude. Positive psychologist, Martin Seligman, has found that people are happiest when using their strengths. Grateful youth are happier and more satisfied with their lives, friends, family, neighborhood, and selves, than less grateful youth. Gratitude, however, cannot be imposed – it must be cultivated from within.
As noted by esteemed gratitude researcher, Dr. Giacomo Bono: “Gratitude interventions for students should start by identifying and engaging students’ character strengths and interests, and they should let students appreciate the different benefits and benefactors in their lives for themselves.”
As a response to my research, we created this character strengths researched-based Gratitude lesson and two decks of character strengths Boom Cards. Our character strengths gratitude lesson connects with the VIA Character Strengths and Virtues. In addition to learning about VIA’s 24 character strengths list, our lesson has two character strength worksheets for students to reflect on their results from the VIA character strengths test known as the VIA Character Strength Youth Survey. The VIA Survey is free, psychometrically validated, and takes about 15 minutes.
To create the VIA Character Strengths Survey, the VIA Institute, led by Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman, collaborated with 55 psychology scholars and leading figures in the field of positive youth development for three years. They created six categories now known as the VIA Virtues – wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence – and 24 culturally universal character strengths that were then conceptually assigned to one of the virtue categories.
According to the VIA Character Strengths website, “Character strengths are different than your other personal strengths, such as your unique skills, talents, interests and resources, because they reflect the “real” you—who you are at your core. Every individual possesses all 24 character strengths in different degrees, giving each person a unique character strengths profile.”
- Our Gratitude Lesson – Grateful for My Strengths complements the free VIA Character Strengths Survey to enrich the discussion about character strengths and virtues. Our character strengths lesson plan comes with two character strength worksheets and a variety of cards featuring the VIA character strengths along with ideas on how to use them. We also have online options to learn about character strengths.
- Boom cards: students to match up a character strength with a bulleted description.
- Boom cards: scenarios for students to identify the action with the corresponding character strength.
