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Teresa Guffey, EIP/Title 1, Chickamauga Elementary School

I am a teacher at Chickamauga Elementary School in Chickamauga, Ga. A few years back you addressed our staff. I truly enjoyed your visit and was greatly inspired.  I carried your message back to my classroom and read weekly from your books to my first graders. Three years ago, my principal approached me about starting a service club for our school in which students recommended by their teacher would become members. My studies in your research of Heroes immediately came to mind. We decided to call our club the HERO CLUB.  Each meeting begins with a hero focus taken from your book, Fifty Heros….. and then an in-depth discussion of the character traits that aided that particular hero in achieving greatest. Next we brainstorm ways we can emulate those traits in our life to also achieve greatness and help others. 

As you can imagine, this club has been life altering to our students and especially to me!!  I have watched so many children metamorphosis as they see that ordinary people can truly accomplish extraordinary things when they set their mind to it! For lack of a more fitting word, I have truly been blessed by your work and how I have seen it manifested through our students. I know you must hear this frequently, but your work continues to inspire me as an educator and as a human being. I hope there are “More Heroes…..” in the makings. Please know that your work lives on in the lives it touches.

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Tom Lickona, Author, Character Matters; Director, Center for the 4th and 5th Rs, SUNY Cortland

Getting kids hooked on heroes is one of the best ways to inspire them to be the best they can be. Dennis Denenberg, one of America’s leading experts on this subject, has come up with a simple but ingenious idea: putting heroes on trading cards like the baseball cards many of us collected as kids.  This is something all character educators will want to have in their toolbox.

Rep. John Legg (Florida), Vice Chair - K-12 Committee, Education Council Committee, History teacher

When speaking in classrooms throughout Florida, Hero cards have been an excellent tool to make history come alive. Students want heroes. Students Need Heroes. The hero cards help spark that curiosity to help create life long learners! Using them as a reward and incentive has proved to be a valuable teaching tool for me. Thank you for devolving this tool for our students!.

Sandra Humphrey, author Dare to Dream (and others), www.kidscandoit.com

I LOVE your idea of the hero trading cards! We have trading cards for lots of people who are not necessarily good role models and I think it's definitely time to have some cards for real heroes. I noticed Dennis' book paired with mine on Amazon--I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but I think it sounds wonderful! I think we are all on the same path: trying to inspire our youth to pursue and attain worthwhile goals and to be people of integrity.

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