A Cohort of Secondary School Principals and Heads of Institution from several Counties in Kenya are currently enrolled in a monthly virtual Coaching and Mentorship Speaker Series on Cultivating Virtues for Leadership (CViL). The purpose of CViL Coaching and Mentoring sessions is to help guide the school leaders on a personal and professional development journey. A journey of self-discovery and appreciation, a deep understanding of servant leadership virtues, character education, and skills necessary to lead school transformation. Based on CViL programming, the Centre’s collaborative goal with education stakeholders is to ‘mentor and coach institutional administrators by building and enhancing skills and competencies for proper management of learning institutions’ as stipulated in Teacher Induction, Mentorship and Coaching Guidelines.

The second coaching and mentorship session focused on ‘Creating a Culture Where Everyone Grows: Every Educator is a Chief Empathy Officer’ presented by Dr. Thomas Hoerr, Scholar in Residence, University of Missouri-St. Louis and Emeritus Head of the New City School, USA. Dr. Thomas shared strategies for developing empathy in educational settings including use of school spaces to visibly celebrate virtues such as empathy and collegiality among students and staff; modelling and encouraging the practice of gratitude in staff meetings; and use of the 5-to-1 ratio of positive to negative interactions with a colleague or team at school or at home for relationships to flourish. Dr. Thomas emphasized the need for school leaders to help staff grow and learn while being empathetic as he said, “for institutions to grow and flourish, people need to grow too.” The session concluded with participants sharing their takeaways, which included looking less busy to be approachable, writing thank you notes to staff, and embracing empathy in leadership.

The third coaching and mentorship session focused on the “Jubilee Centre Framework for Character Education in Schools” presented by Professor Andrew Peterson, Deputy Director at the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues, University of Birmingham, UK. Prof. Peterson explained the framework’s building blocks of character, which categorize virtues into intellectual, moral, civic, and performance virtues, all infused with practical wisdom (phronesis) which enables human beings “to perceive, know, desire, and act with good sense” leading to individual and societal flourishing. Also, he discussed the Character caught, Character taught and character sought approach to character development, and the components of virtue including perception, knowledge, emotion, identity, motivation, reasoning, and action. He emphasized that all educators are character educators. Lastly, his presentation highlighted research findings showing that schools with intentional character education programs achieve better academic outcomes and foster stronger student well-being.

The Coaching and Mentorship Speaker Series are being hosted by the Centre Director for the Character Education Programme, Peter King’ori in collaboration with Professor Dr. Vishalache Balakrishnan, Director of the Centre for Research in International and Comparative Education (CRICE), Faculty of Education, Universiti Malaya, Malaysia.