The Virginian-Pilot 
                             THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Thursday, September 1, 1994            TAG: 9408310144
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN              PAGE: 06   EDITION: FINAL 
TYPE: Guest Column 
SOURCE: BY DR. DOUGLAS C. NAISMITH
        PRESIDENT, Nansemond-Suffolk Academy 
                                             LENGTH: Medium:   77 lines

IT'S NOT HOW MUCH YOU KNOW, RATHER IT'S HOW YOU USE IT

A significant part of the mission statement of any school has to do with the development of character, but that's not always apparent when we look at how students are evaluated.

Objective measures (SAT's, college admissions, scholarships and honors) are designed to show whether students are ``smarter than,'' ``as smart as'' or ``not as smart as'' their peers. Students who succeed in this environment are those who can carry an impossible load of athletics, student government, community service and social commitments and still manage to be ``smarter than'' the others. One seldom hears mention of the human qualities most of us would readily admit are of far greater importance in the long run.

I don't mean to disparage academic achievement. . . , but I sometimes wonder why the educational establishment, in all its efforts to reform and reshape the educational system, hasn't figured out that we're putting too much emphasis on acquiring knowledge and too little emphasis on the application. We know in our hearts that what matters most is not how much you know but how you use it. Isn't that really the message of Forrest Gump, the young man with the IQ of 75, who won our hearts this summer? If ever a movie put our notion of ``intelligence'' in its place and elevated the qualities of wisdom, friendship, loyalty and love, it is ``Forrest Gump.''

Our mission statement makes it very clear that certain qualities of character are valued at NSA and will be instilled in our students, qualities such as honesty, tolerance, compassion, civility, resolution, self-reliance and determination. In a world that sometimes pulls our students in the opposite direction, teaching these qualities is no easy task. Consider what students learn from the likes of the Dream Team II, a bunch of basketball-playing thugs who represented us at the Goodwill Games this summer, or from MTV, which ran an ad for its coverage of Woodstock which said, ``All you have to do to change the world is change the channel,'' or from the glorification of sex, violence and arrogance that typifies much of our popular culture.

I don't know whether schools can make a difference, but I do believe that, for a small but significant element of young people today who lack moral guidance and are growing up in a moral wasteland, schools offer the only hope. These are the young people William Raspberry describes as ``conscienceless'' because ``they have reached adolescence and beyond without internalizing any important sense of right and wrong.''

Fortunately, most of our students have ``conscience,'' a fundamental sense of right and wrong, but we must do our part to nurture and strengthen it. Research tells us that parents choose independent schools because they value our commitment to moral education - looking at everything we do in our school through a moral lens, taking the time to recognize and deal with the moral implications each situation presents, and having the courage to act. It means talking about moral concepts and encouraging students to question their own value systems. It also means living by a commonly agreed upon code of conduct, a standard to which we can all aspire.

I'd like to propose the following Code of Conduct:

I will respect the rights, beliefs and property of others.

I will not use profane, foul or offensive language.

I will be truthful in word and deed.

I will abide by school rules.

I will strive to be helpful and beneficial to all concerned.

As with everything else that happens in this school, the success or failure of the Code of Conduct will depend on the faculty and staff. You must support it with your words and model it with your actions. You must also be willing to call into question, in the proper way, those students and colleagues whose words and actions violate the spirit of the code. If you do this, I believe you will see a transformation of spirit in this student body that will have more effect than detention and pink slips ever could. MEMO: Dr. Naismith presented these remarks to faculty and staff in the opening

session of the 1994-95 school year.

by CNB