1) Conduct a course such as this in every school where it can be organized.
2) Conduct it at whatever level it can be introduced; the earlier the better.
3) Analyze and know the politics that govern local school district decisions.
4) Keep the focus narrow to ethics.
5) Use the histories, traditions, and honor codes of the academies to amplify the focus on ethics.
6) Weave character values into discussion so that students understand the factors that make up good character and ethical behavior.
7) Avoid inserting religious, political, and racial considerations in any proposal, unless the school is privately funded (in which case, the cooperation from the academies might be limited as a matter of law). This is critical to getting the course approved with minimum resistance.
8) Use the examples of the Service Academies to teach the course. It is impossible to study them thoroughly without a discussion of ethics. And, the academies and their graduates present wonderful real life examples of how to meet ethical dilemmas.
9) Involve the widest range of service academy graduates as possible.
10) Involve the administration (if there is a distinguished speaker coming [such as a Major General], make sure the administration knows and its members are scheduled to drop by).
11) Involve graduates who have children in the class. They love it, and their children are incredibly proud, particularly after learning about the difficulty of their parents' achievements.
12) Use someone other than the teacher to coordinate. This is crucial. I spent many, many hours on this project. Hours that Barbara did not have.
13) Give clear instruction to participants, both written and oral. (Do your best. Unseen circumstances sometimes make this not feasible. But, the speakers are people who are remarkably intelligent, dedicated, willing, and accustomed to teaching. They know what to do.)
14) Introduce them to the class, and let'm rip! Participate with questions, but trust to your speakers. Each one of ours was stellar!
15) Follow-up with thank yous.
16) Be prepared for last minute cancellations, substitutions, etc. (These are very busy people, and things come up - with videos from the academies, and movies, there is always a way of making excellent use of the time.)
17) Ask for help. (Continued next page.)