Character Development Workshop for St. Louis-Area Boys
Early this year, Pete Paciorek, director of School advancement and community outreach, teamed up with Albert Harrold, director of the Family and Community Engagement Department for the Ferguson-Florissant School District, to provide a character development program for St. Louis-area boys in grades 7, 8, and 9. Approximately 25 boys participated, with seven from Principia, about a dozen from the Ferguson-Florissant district, and the remainder from private and public schools near Principia, including the Kirkwood, Parkway, and Webster Groves areas. Noting that "character is of the utmost importance during these formative years of development,” Paciorek was encouraged by the “strong and dynamic” group of young men in the workshop.
Harrold and Paciorek, who met at last year’s Youth Empowerment Summit in Ferguson, have a lot in common. Both have a strong background in athletics: Harrold is a three-time collegiate All-American and a Missouri State Champion in wrestling. Paciorek played baseball professionally in the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres organizations. Both men have also founded organizations focused on youth character development: Paciorek started Character Loves Company, based on the principles in his book Character Loves Company—Defining the Teachable Moments in Sports: A Guidebook to Character Literacy Development. Harrold founded Strength and Honor Mentoring and Tutoring, whose motto is "Where dreams become reality and boys become men.”
Given Paciorek and Harrold’s common passion for youth, collaborating on a character development workshop came naturally. And hosting it at Principia fit perfectly with the School’s desire to share its focus on character growth more broadly.
Sessions ran on Saturdays from 4 to 6 p.m. for eight weeks beginning in mid-January. Each session included classroom work—discussion, review, journaling, and sometimes a guest speaker—as well as a physical activity and conversation over dinner. At the very first session, which focused on respect, each boy wrote a thank-you note to a parent, teacher, coach, or mentor as a way of putting respect into action. That shift from the theoretical to the practical was a hallmark of the program. At another session, the boys played paired dodgeball blindfolded, with the person who could see giving verbal guidance to the blindfolded player—a challenging but fun exercise in leadership, followership, and the importance of clear directions.
One of the guest speakers was two-time Olympic runner Ngozi Mwanamwambwa Asinga (US’89, C’93), the first woman to represent Zambia in the Olympics. After talking with the boys about hard work and overcoming adversity, she put them through a tough workout in the gym. Another speaker, Gary LaRocque, director of player development for the St. Louis Cardinals, described what character traits he looks for in players. Always seeking to keep their lessons relevant, Paciorek and Harrold adjusted their curriculum after basketball legend Kobe Bryant died, making Bryant’s Mamba Mentality, which emphasizes dedication and the relentless pursuit of excellence, the focus of that workshop.
Both workshop leaders saw growth within the group. “In each of the eight weeks,” Harrold comments, “I witnessed bonds of apprehension break and the clay of relationships being molded.” To reinforce this progress, the leaders emailed a weekly summary of each workshop to the boys’ parents or guardians to encourage conversation about what they had covered. Harrold and Paciorek hope to reconvene the group at the start of summer in order to reconnect with the boys, have some fun together, and hear how they’re putting what they learned into practice.