"For many of the pupils interviewed in the schools visited, the profile of ESD is raised when it becomes an integral part of the curriculum. Where heads of department or subject co-ordinators review and where necessary revise their schemes of work to include opportunities to promote ESD, this reinforces a greater understanding of the key concepts and continues to develop positive attitudes and values towards sustainability issues across the whole school."

Taking the first step forward...Towards Education for Sustainable Development: Good practice in primary and secondary schools, Ofsted / HMI 2003

www.ofsted.gov.uk

 

 

Learning Values


Purpose:
To focus on what are the core values for education in the 21st century, how to 'teach' them and how to assess whether pupils are taking them on board

Preparation:

Teacher time: You may like to find your own quotes / stimuli for the introduction that show the conflict between anthropocentric and eco-centric values

Resources: Stimulus quotes; Values, Aims and Purposes (VAP) of National Curriculum (NC) quote; copies of list of values in Titus Alexander's 'Citizenship Schools'; copies of newspapers and magazines; flipchart and pens; copies of LfSC Evaluation methodologies; video or dvd of the Matrix.

Procedure:
Time needed: Minimum of 90 minutes. 2 hours is better.

Stimulus a)
The Head of an American high school sends this letter to his teachers on the first day of school:

Dear Teacher,

I am a survivor of a concentration camp. My eyes saw what no man should witness:
Gas chambers built by learned engineers.
Children poisoned by educated physicians.
Infants killed by trained nurses.
Women and babies shot and burned by high school and college graduates.
So, I am suspicious of education.
My request is: Help your students become human. Your efforts must never produce learned monsters, skilled psychopaths, educated Eichmanns.
Reading writing, arithmetic are important only if they serve to make our children more human.

(From Prejudice to Genocide: Learning about the Holocaust, Carrie Supple, Trentham Books 2003)

Stimulus b)

Clip from the film ‘The Matrix’: Morpheus is being interrogated by Agent Smith who tells him that they have been doing research on the human species and have found out that they are not truly mammals. He says that mammals always find a way of keeping in equilibrium with their environment, whereas humans destroy an area and then move on. Humans are in fact more like a virus, and his species is the cure.

- Invite comments on what links the quote and the film clip.

- Introduce: Aims of the workshop: What are values? Is learning values an important part of education? How can we ‘teach’ / learn values? How can we assess whether values are being learned?

- Do a Value Line Activity: Ask everyone to stand up and make space to stand in a line across the room. Tell them you are going to read out a statement; if people agree strongly with it they move to one side of the room; and if they disagree strongly they move to the other side of the room; if they are unsure they stay in the middle; however, wherever they are standing along the line, they may be asked to justify their position there.

- Example: Statement 1a) There are too many cars on the road
1b) Cars give us a great sense of freedom and mobility

(The idea is to make people think about where they stand on an issue; they also have to be prepared to justify it. It also shows us that some of our values can be in conflict with each other. e.g. when you ask most children in England if there are too many cars on the road they usually agree strongly, but when you ask if they want to get a car when they are 18 they also agree strongly.)

- What are values? Get definitions from the audience. The following definition is a useful one:

"Fundamental beliefs or principles which determine our attitude to, and guide our judgement of, behaviour and the worth of things, including what is right or wrong, good or bad, important or unimportant."

Personal Values - values in relation to self;
Moral values - values in relation to others;
Social values - values in relation to community or society.

(Robert Fisher 'Values for Thinking - see DEP Bookshop)'

- Is learning values an important part of education? Most will agree that it is. Display the first line of the Values, Aims and Purposes of the National Curriculum:

“Education influences and reflects the values of society, and the kind of society we want to be.”

-Either: get participants to work in pairs / small groups on what they feel are a) 'Current values in society' b) 'The values of the kind of society we want to be'.
Write up the results on two pieces of flipchart paper and display

-Or: Get the participants to do the same activity but ask them to tear out images and words from a range of current newspapers and magazines and display on large pieces of paper on the wall under the two headings

(Generally when asked to say what the predominant values of our society are currently, teachers will come up with what they see as negative values - materialistic, individualistic, celebrity obsessed etc. The kind of values they would like to see are those they see as more positive - ecologically conscious, caring, sharing etc.)

- Asked what their responsibility is for helping to shift from the current to the desired, teachers are usually much less certain of their role. Many teachers are worried about exposing or imposing their values).

- How can we ‘teach’ / learn values? Ask for ideas. This is a useful model:

“The process of building a moral conscience as through:

  • example - models of values in action
  • discussion - shared enquiry and discussion of moral values, issues and problems
  • encouragement - support for thinking about, and acting on, value beliefs.”
    (Robert Fisher 'Values for Thinking')
  • Starting with a story or a dilemma is useful and the debate and comparison of values is crucial. But then support and encouragement needs to be given to those who are trying to live their values. There is a lot of evidence that the teacher as role model is a powerful way of imparting values.

There is also the issue of how we have shared values. The National Curriculum for England incorporates in the Appendix a set of values that are supposed to be agreed by our society, after much consultation with different faith and secular groups. One primary school in Oxfordshire has been ‘teaching’ values for about 10 years. The school community agreed what their core values were, they are now listed and 'taught'. There is a ‘Value of the week’. Newsletters are sent home which inform parents how they can engage in discussion about the values; school assemblies and lessons focus on the value of the week as much as possible. Evaluation has shown that it is the parents and teachers who have learnt the most, as they have to re-evaluate so many of their own values by discussing them with those who take a child’s view.

See ‘A Quiet Revolution’ by Frances Farrer, available from our resource centre >>

- How can we assess whether values are being learned? Ask for ideas. This quote may be useful in the light of the current debate over too much testing:

“We must learn to measure what we value, not just what we can measure.”
(John Keast UK Qualifications and Curriculum Authority)

- Give out copies of the list of values in the NC (from Titus Alexander's 'Citizenship schools') Ask participants to think of values they feel are important to them as educators. (Teachers often choose ones like “The ability to challenge prejudice and stereotypes”).

- Ask them to think how they might go about assessing whether in their time at school pupils have learned or examined those values. (You may like to get them to look at the school's Mission statement and examine what values are embodied there and whether or not the school knows if those values are taken on board by pupils - and staff).

- The final activity is to look at the evaluation methodology developed in this project (Before and After Questionnaires, Diaries, Semi-structured interviews) and assess the usefulness of different methods.

Advantages of this methodology:
• Whole school, inclusive approach
• Agreement on core values give everyone a sense of common purpose
• Enables the school to have enhanced credibility in its activities and regarding "spiritual moral and cultural development"
• Enables the school to better "practice what it preaches"
• Can give teachers a greater sense of shared purpose

Disadvantages of this methodology
• Requires time and commitment to carrying through the process
• Can throw up conflicts of values between members of the school community or between school and educational "mainstream"
• May induce a sense of guilt if perceived core values are not being lived up to