A VALUES APPROACH

This posting is the last of a set of entries which is dedicated to the topic of values education. If you have not read the two previous postings, it would probably be best to go back and do so, although I believe this posting stands on its own. To date, I have presented two instructional models on how values can be treated in the classroom – they're procedural approaches to addressing what it means to say liberty is when a person has the right to do what he or she should do. This latter concern reflects how federalists see liberty and, as someone who is promoting a version of federalism, I foster such a view if only as an ideal. Of course, this view of liberty flies in the face of the natural rights view which states: liberty is the right to do what one wants to do as long as what one does does not hurt others or prevent others from having the same rights. In case you have missed my bias, I do believe schools have a role in promoting values. Therefore, what I am promoting is counter to the prevalent, natural rights view. For me, the question is not whether to deal in values education, but how it should be done.

For example, should a school make a list of values and say, “We're about promoting these values”? There is an approach that basically does this. There have been school districts around the country that have adopted a model proposed by Thomas Lickona.¹ In this model, some process is established locally to devise a list of values,² such as respect for fellow citizens and honesty, then garner a majority support for the list, and incorporate it into the district's curriculum so that the values on the list can be “taught” to the students of that district. This is similar to the widely advertised strategy that the First Tee program, a national golf instructional program, has instituted. I do have some concerns over this approach. I noticed that none of the formulated lists I have become aware of have such values reflecting critical thinking values or “questioning authority” values. Beyond that, the approach does not address the eventuality that any value on such a list, no matter how commendable it is, will come into conflict with another value on the list as it is applied in real life. For example, one such conflict occurs when a person has to decide whether to spend more time doing work related activities or meeting child rearing responsibilities at home. Dilemmas in life are caused by such conflicts and a curriculum that does not address value conflicts does not prepare students for such situations.

But then again, the aim of such approaches is not for students to “think” about these things, but to accept a line of thinking. Some might call that indoctrination. That has to offend true advocates of the natural rights perspective. And we see that contention in today's headlines. Over the past years, the First Lady, Michelle Obama, has been promoting healthy foods in our school lunchrooms and the elimination of unhealthy foods from vending machines installed on our school campuses. On the face of it, how can anyone protest this effort or the value upon which such an effort is based? One can ask this especially when we have had an obesity problem among the nation's youth. Yet there has been a constant drumbeat against Obama's efforts, describing them as government interfering with child rearing decisions. That is, this “governmental” initiative is trying to interfere with individuals deciding for themselves what it is they or their children will eat for lunch. Some of this is just plain political shenanigans, but the glimmer of seriousness this reaction might express reflects a bias toward natural rights values. Schools, under this predominant view, have no business trying to instill any values with the exception of the value entailed with the unencumbered rights to choose on an individual basis – no matter how immature the person is.

For a federalist, there are two tugging conceptual forces at play. As with Raths' approach to values education, a federalist would be concerned with a student being able to define what he or she believes in – a central element of having a positive self-image, a view of who one is. Only this kind of person – a person who actively is about determining his or her own values – can be an active member of a federated union, a person who knows, appreciates, and can act in fulfilling his or her responsibilities within that association. On the other hand, as with the Oliver-Shaver approach, a federalist has an overarching value orientation that is shared by the other members of the association since no association– be it a social group, a sports league, a family, a local jurisdiction, or a nation – exists without valued aims and goals. Whether that orientation follows Gunnar Myrdal's American Creed or the federalist moral code offered in this blog or any other moral orientation, it provides a guide to what value issues should be studied and what questions that study should utilize.

So, the efforts that constitute values education need to incorporate both the concerns of the Raths' model and those of Oliver and Shaver. Such an effort might be an affront to Rath's view, in that by adopting an overall value orientation, instruction would favor a certain values and limit, to some degree, the free-wheeling nature of that model. On the other hand, using Raths' language in carrying out instructional value discussions with students does not offend the aims of Oliver and Shaver. When I started this series of postings, I cited Maurice P. Hunt and Lawrence E. Metcalf's work and their conception of value assertions – I used their outline of three possible forms of value assertions to organize these postings. They go on to offer their own approach to values education. They combine both Raths' and Oliver and Shaver's ideas. Hunt and Metcalf's approach is similar to these two approaches in that it has the students (1) know the nature of the problem presented to them in class, (2) know the consequences of the problem and/or decision alternatives, (3) bring out the relevant student values, (4) justify value choices according to some philosophy of life. Their criterion for choosing value conflicts is to choose values that students already hold and devise a lesson that presents them with contradictory value assertions. This, in turn, causes dissonance and motivates the students to engage in defending the values they hold. By so doing, the student clarifies his/her values which might lead to strengthening those values or, upon reflection, changing or modifying them. In any event, the student will be more conscious of what he or she believes to be the good. I will not rehash Raths' and Oliver and Shaver's models to explain the overlap among their efforts and that of Hunt and Metcalf – you are invited to read the last two postings which will make it quite clear where the concepts of these models are similar. I will leave this concern with a call for educators to breathe new life into values education – no matter what the approach. Even with the shortcomings of the Lickona approach, it is better than what is currently more in vogue: an abandonment of dealing with value issues in the classroom.

1Lickona, T. (1991). Educating for character: How our schools can teach respect and responsibility. New York, NY: Bantam Books. For a shortened version of Lickona's ideas, see http://www.Scholastic. com/teachers/article/ect-interview-thomas-lickona-phd-talks-about-character-education .

2Lickona suggests honesty, compassion, courage, kindness, self-control, cooperation, diligence or hard work .