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Ever since I started reporting on education, I鈥檝e been fascinated by the questions of which skills help children succeed, and what kind of environments and interventions tend to enhance or deter the development of those skills. As I started doing the early reporting that turned into this book, I came to realize that there鈥檚 a ton of important research and experimentation going on out there by people who are trying to answer those questions. But right now, that research is spread out among many disparate fields, like education, neuroscience, developmental psychology, and economics. And the people doing the most interesting work on these questions often aren鈥檛 communicating with each other. Many of them are working in a vacuum.

So I thought a book that collected and investigated all of these new ideas would be valuable to parents, teachers, and general readers.

And I also thought it could make for a compelling read. When you鈥檙e watching young people wrestle with issues of character, it can be dramatic and engrossing in a way that education reporting doesn鈥檛 always get to be.

This is a distinction that was made in a paper by the Character Education Partnership. I found it valuable when I was reporting on the character-education collaboration between the KIPP schools in New York City and the Riverdale Country School, which I wrote about in 2011 in the New York Times Magazine, and which I write about in more depth in 鈥淗ow Children Succeed.鈥�

Briefly, 鈥渕oral character鈥� refers to traits related to values and ethics: honesty, piety, chastity, generosity. 鈥淧erformance character鈥� refers to traits related to personal effectiveness: self-control, persistence, grit, optimism. These traits are very similar to what economists like James Heckman refer to as non-cognitive skills.

I think both categories are valuable, but I think they they鈥檙e clearly very different. And one big problem with the word character is that it has these two meanings. Which means that when any two people have a conversation about 鈥渃haracter education,鈥� they are often talking about two very different things.

When educators who care about character are able to be more specific about which character traits they鈥檙e trying to develop in their students, that benefits everyone.

I鈥檓 not sure that schools are the best place for young people to learn moral character, though I think every school should certainly try to teach it. It鈥檚 good for the world to have more people in it who behave more ethically, and if schools can help with that, it鈥檚 all to the good.

In terms of performance character, I think schools should try to teach those traits for a simple and practical reason: because they help students do better in college and beyond. And that鈥檚 really the core mission of our K-12 education system.

In my book, I write about a program in Chicago called OneGoal that I think does a very effective job of teaching kids in high-poverty schools the character strengths that they鈥檙e going to need to persist in college. It鈥檚 early yet, but so far their results are quite impressive.

What I think is so effective about OneGoal鈥檚 approach to character is that it is so targeted. Their goal is clear: to have all of their students, who enter the program as high school sophomores, graduate from a four-year college. And so when OneGoal teachers teach character, they aren鈥檛 just trying to make their students 鈥渂etter people鈥� in some vague way. They鈥檙e specifically teaching the skills that research suggests will be most likely to lead to a B.A. That focus is a critical part of the program鈥檚 success - and it鈥檚 quite rare in character education.

In the Times Magazine and in 鈥淗ow Children Succeed,鈥� I wrote about the 鈥渃haracter report card鈥� that the KIPP schools in New York City are implementing. I think it鈥檚 a useful experiment, but I think the grades are in some ways a red herring. KIPP treats them very differently from academic grades - you can鈥檛 be held back a year for being low on zest. To call them 鈥済rades鈥� at all is kind of misleading (though that is what KIPP calls them).

But despite that semantic quibble, I still think the character assessments that KIPP does are quite valuable. I went to a report-card night at KIPP Infinity in Harlem when they were piloting the character report card, and as I sat in on discussions between teachers and parents and students, I realized that what KIPP had really done was to create not a character report card but a character conversation piece. It was a way to get students and parents and teachers talking together, in an organized and practical way, about the students鈥� non-cognitive abilities and traits. That鈥檚 quite rare, and it鈥檚 quite valuable. And what made it more valuable, in this case, was that it was being done with the explicit belief that those non-cognitive traits are malleable and can be improved with work and practice and help. It didn鈥檛 feel at all judgmental or fatalistic. It was all about improvement and the future.

That strikes me as a very good conversation for teachers to be having with parents and students: This child is struggling with his self-control or his social intelligence or his grit. We know he can improve. What can we all do to help him get there?

If it takes a character report card to make that conversation happen, I鈥檓 all for it.

There鈥檚 a lot of research and reporting in the book that I hope will be of interest to teachers. One chapter that I鈥檓 particularly interested in hearing teachers鈥� response to is the chapter on the chess team at IS 318 in Brooklyn. I spent a couple of years watching the school鈥檚 chess teacher, Elizabeth Spiegel, at work. She鈥檚 accomplishing quite amazing things with her students. And I think it has a lot to do with her teaching style, which is very much oriented toward helping students improve their non-cognitive skills.

I think the methods Elizabeth is using with her students have implications far beyond the chessboard. I鈥檓 eager to about that chapter - and about the book as a whole.