Teaching Character through Conflict: The Medal of Honor Character Development Program

Read a guest blog from our TEACH partner, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society!

Cathy Ehlers Metcalf

Senior Director of Education, Medal of Honor Foundation

The Medal of Honor is an award for valor in battle, not for character. How, then, does it form the foundation for the Medal of Honor Character Development Program?

In 2007, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, composed of all living Medal of Honor Recipients, told their supporting Foundation that they would like their legacy to be character education for America’s youth, provided to them via a free collection of lessons based on these six values: courage, commitment, integrity, sacrifice, citizenship, and patriotism. The Foundation engaged educators in Erie, Pennsylvania, to conceptualize and write lessons based on Medal of Honor Recipients’ living histories. The program launched in 2009, and it now serves over 36,000 educators and the exponential number of students they have engaged since then.

But why these six character values?

Courage is an easy fit. Every Medal of Honor is awarded for “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity.”
Sacrifice is also fairly obvious, as expressed by the phrase “at the risk of one’s life.”
Carrying out such actions for the sake of one’s fellow citizens and the country demonstrates citizenship and
Stories that show American military staying to finish the fight when it would be easier and safer to flee demonstrate commitment in historical examples.
Integrity is a bit more challenging, given that it is personal. Choosing to do what one believes is right, even in the absence of safety or freedom, shows students that some things are more important than themselves. Integrity recognizes that some things most worth living for may indeed require dying for.

The Medal of Honor Character Development Program (MOH CDP) has grown since 2009 to include lessons that can be used with over 115 primary source videos in which Recipients tell their own stories. The video collection also features several recently created biographical films of individuals who passed away before their video stories were captured, along with stories of events that resulted in multiple Medals being awarded, many of them posthumously. These stories are presented in brief video format so that they too may be used within class structure and timing, allowing educators to simultaneously teach character through distinct instances of American history. The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation has been a staunch supporter of the MOH CDP, allowing it to grow and encourage teachers and students alike even through the challenges of the pandemic.

While the MOH CDP was originally designed for middle and high school students, elementary teachers around the country began pleading for something similar for their classes. In 2016, the Elementary Medal of Honor Character Development Program was launched, featuring the Medal of Honor selected values shared primarily through already commonly approved classroom assigned reading and videos, such as The Giving Tree, Clifford the Big Red Dog, and America’s White Table.

Path to Honor, an online interactive program for youth, joined the Medal of Honor education lineup in 2023, complements of a generous donation by Delta Airlines. First previewed at National Scout Jamboree in summer of 2023, featuring 18 brief videos and personal challenges, the program now includes both seven Citizen Honoree stories and an additional eleven Medal of Honor stories, offering a total of 36 modules that ask students to consider what they would do in similar situations. The challenges of critical thinking combined with personal character reflection in the context of suspenseful real-life stories inspire students to consider seriously what matters most to them, and what they would be willing to do to preserve those values.

We can see how the values embodied in Medal of Honor actions form a solid, non-fiction, academically-based foundation for a flexible, meaningful, and inspiring character education program. But why use these stories for the content? Because of the over forty million individuals who have served in the United States Armed Forces, just over 3500 have been awarded this most revered Medal. In the face of a crisis and most often in the face of very possible if not certain death, these individuals acted in a way that demonstrated, at that moment in time, the values that show human character at its most noble. If we can teach these values to America’s youth, we can enable them to live lives of significance, and we can in turn make this world a better place for all of us. The Medal of Honor Character Development Program provides educators the tools to do just that.

To learn more and access the Medal of Honor Character Development Program, click here.