“Sharing Values, Deepens Values”….Sathya Sai
Dear Readers,
In our December eNewsletter, we introduced Rosemary Marron, Director of The Institute of Sathya Sai Education, Ireland. She gave a presentation called “Sharing Values, Deepens Values” at BISSE’s Annual National Day on October 3rd 2009 at Abbey Primary School, Leicester. Please catch Part 1 and 2 on our website http://www.BISSE.org.uk
We now continue with Part 3….
“Sharing Values, Deepens Values”
...Sathya Sai
Presented by Rosemary Marron MBA MSc (MBRM)
At the Living Values Conference organised by
The British Institute of Sathya Sai Education
3rd October 2009 at Abbey Primary School Leicester.
Part 3
What are the implications to stakeholders in the educational system?
We live in a pluralistic, multi-valued society and while the spirit of pluralism is affirming the value of different cultures, one must ask the question, ‘can one affirm value diversity in this context?’ Differences between cultures, social classes, occupations, religions, or political orientations are all translatable into questions concerning differences in underlying values and value systems.
Studies of change as a result of maturation, education, cultural, institutional, and technological change are all similarly capable of being formulated as questions concerning development and change in values and value systems.
Educational institutions have always been in the business of transmitting knowledge from one generation to the next and of shaping certain values in certain directions. However we can see that some of these traditional values seem very definitely on the decline, e.g., the absence of aesthetic values.
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, year 2000 Committee, on “values and rights” said the following on values in the future…
...here lies one of the great gaps in our knowledge in this sphere: how to generate an adherence to values? Precious little is known about many key empirical aspects of values, despite the monumental labours of various people. And no part of this knowledge gap is more notable than that relating to the teaching of values, and are more acute in an era when the historic media of value transmission are losing much of their traditional effectiveness. So this crisis of values that we all face is obviously of serious concern. This crisis of values has also been identified by UNESCO and other educational organisations throughout the world.
And yet as far back as 1912, Bosanquet stated that education of feeling is the most important of all education as it provides the person with the skills to ‘like and dislike rightly’.
Implications to Stakeholders
A number of European countries are however attempting to address this issue through curriculum subjects, for example, citizenship, PSHE etc. Citizenship education aims to strengthen social cohesion, by placing great emphasis on values, social competencies and thinking. Many countries identified a number of core underlying concepts that can be identified in the following three categories:
• Core values (such as human rights and social responsibility)
• Values with a legal basis (including democracy, law and freedom)
• Human values (such as tolerance and empathy)
Figure 1 – Education for Citizenship – Concepts and Components
Source: Nelson and Kerr, 2006, p.20.
Implications to Stakeholders
The International Review of Curriculum and Assessment Frameworks Archive (known as INCA) states that the challenge for many countries is to find ways of assessing those elements of active citizenship which appear difficult to evaluate – and this includes values and participation.
Furthermore consideration of the assessment of student growth in terms of attitudes, values and moral judgements needs to be well thought-out when potential employers are seeking young people who are highly motivated, flexible, independent thinkers and good team workers.
Kerr (1999), states that educational values and aims are an extremely important structural factor and that how countries express their values has a marked influence on the definition of, and approach to, citizenship education.
There is however a philosophical and practical tension between ‘values-explicit’ and ‘values-neutral’ citizenship education. The question arises whether education should be values-explicit, i.e., promote distinct values which are part of a broader nationally accepted system of public values and beliefs? Or should it be ‘values-neutral’ or ‘values-free’ and take a neutral stance to values and controversial issues, leaving the decision on values to the individual? However it is interesting to note that countries with a ‘values-explicit’ tradition are better able to set out the aims and goals of citizenship education (policy), how those are to be delivered (practice) and what the end results should be (outcomes) than those countries with a ‘values-neutral’ tradition. Additionally, it should be noted that clarity of aims does not guarantee successful outcomes.
So we can say that, an educational system, at any given point in time, is a combination of the past, the present and the future. For many teachers, the defining years are those in which they are trained and first enter the profession. In recent years, Governments in their attempt to engage business models from the corporate world into education has resulted in the ‘professionality’ of the teacher being eroded. Emphasis is now on inputs/outputs with little emphasis on the pastoral or human aspects of teaching. Understanding aims and values means understanding the interaction of these different features and the successful implementation of educational reforms needs to take these factors into consideration.
There is nevertheless a clear link between values and educational aims, despite the variations in the way in which they are expressed (Le Metais, 1997). For example, the intrinsic value of education is reflected in the almost universal entitlement to free education, expressed in most countries as the individual’s right. Values of tolerance, democracy and respect for difference are found in the United Nations policies including the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, Millennium Development Goals and UNESCO’s Education for All goals. Accordingly it is stated by the United Nations (2007) that the development of education for democratic citizenship and human rights and values in education should be seen as a priority in the best interest of all nations.
We end here and begin again with “Sathya Sai Education in Human Values and its philosophy of Educare” in the June issue….
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