Spiritual Education – How Values Education Can Help Define It
By Dr Bill Robb

Spiritual education is sometimes offered as a way of getting back to values, which if acted upon would result in behaviours that would make life better for everyone. 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, spiritual education, drugs education, sex education and personal and social education, to name only a few.

However, what can we make of spiritual education?

Unfortunately, there is ample research to show that many of these “educations” 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.
 

• 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".
• 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.
• 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.
• 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. What is a responsible scientist? Are scientists really making life better? What rules should scientists follow to help them be good scientists? Should scientists work on projects such as the hydrogen bomb knowing that their knowledge will be used to kill thousands of people? 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 in a values education class 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 are often referred to as spiritual questions. Another question shows the interrelatedness of values 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? And are these not the kinds of questions that would be discussed in a spiritual education class?

There are many possibilities for research in the field of spiritual education and values education. Dr Bill would be happy to assist postgraduate students (with the approval of their university or college) devise research topics and conduct a study. Contact Dr Bill Robb

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