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Network's own values guidelines
involving humility, honesty, care for others, respect, empathy,
kindness and understanding.
Hardly a day goes by
without newspaper articles and television and radio programmes calling
for more ethical behaviour from adults as well as children. There is
no debate that more ethical behaviour would enhance the well-being of
all. To achieve this end, high level committees (such as The Committee
on Standards in Public Life) are established. We see a Parliamentary
Commissioner on Standards in place, codes of conduct/ethics abound in
private and public organisations and educational institutions are
bombarded with advice and materials on moral education, religious
education, peace education, spiritual education, drugs education, sex
education and personal and social education, to name only a few.
Unfortunately, there
is ample research to show that many of these attempts are not having
the desired effect. Crime and social problems and the accompanying
misery are increasing. Why?
In my experience all
these efforts are in the main failing for three main reasons.
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Insufficient time, resources and
energy are devoted to them. To give only one example: in Scottish
primary and secondary schools the recommended minimum curriculum
time allocated to religious and moral education is 10% and 5%
respectively. Even this meager time is diluted as the time is often
used for "more important matters".
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Most of the many "educations"
whose stated purpose is to help people behave more responsibly,
concentrate on transmitting technical information instead of getting
people to think about the consequences of their actions and why they
should behave responsibly.
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There is still too much telling.
Pupils are told what values to abide by, managers and employees are
told what the corporate values are and what codes of conduct must be
obeyed.
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Officialdom's unwillingness to
examine carefully new ideas and fear of change (changing one's mind
for many in our culture is seen as a weakness - an initial mistake).
Values education
offers a glimmer of hope. It is a non-indoctrinatory, non-telling way
of getting people to evaluate their values for their own well-being
and the well-being of others. It can be done with almost any
age-group, but it is not easy. For the time that values education is
underway, the teacher's or facilitator's opinion is treated as no more
and no less important than other participants' opinions. If the topic
in a values education class was, "Is science really benefiting
humankind" questions such as the following could be explored.
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What is a responsible scientist?
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Are scientists really making life
better?
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What rules should scientists
follow to help them be good scientists?
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Should scientists work on projects
like the hydrogen bomb knowing that their knowledge will be used to
kill thousands of people?
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A company pays a scientist to
develop a wonder drug to cure all cancers, and the scientist
succeeds. At the beginning of the project the scientist agreed that
the company was the sole owner of the formulas for the drug. The
company decides to sell the drug at such a high price that only rich
people can afford it. Should the scientist steal the formula and
make it available to everyone?
Some people belittle
the Socratic dialogue that striving to answer such questions involves.
They see it as going round in circles and achieving nothing concrete.
However, a more extensive study would show that values education, if
persisted in, requires people to penetrate to the ultimate questions:
What does it mean to be human? Why am I here? Where am I going? These
ultimate questions could be called spiritual questions because humans
are questioned as well as questioning. Another question shows the
interrelatedness of humanity, ethicality and spirituality: What do I
have to do to become even more human, that is, how must I respond to
others if I am to experience meaningfulness in the face of
nothingness? Surely that is one of the ultimate spiritual questions?
Your comments on this article are most welcome. Send them to
info@valueseducation.co.uk.
Dr Bill would be happy to talk at your next conference or event and
share more insights into the fascinating field of values education.
Contact him on bill.robb@valueseducation.co.uk
Copyright © 2008 Values Education Ltd
Note to editors. Feel free to use this article as long as the
following details are retained. “A values education article from CAVE
www.valueseducation.co.uk
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