Action Plan for a Teacher Transformed-

Connect: Reconnect with your students by setting aside certain times during the day that can be devoted to having conversations with them.  These times can be during the day, before school, or after school.  Get to know your students outside of your daily schedule of events.  I see students becoming more and more disconnected from each other, their families, teachers, and society.  This issue can be addressed by knowing the people you are teaching.  Show your students that you value interpersonal relationships.

Offer parenting classes: After taking part in a preschool program that offers parenting classes, I see this as a fairly inexpensive game changer.  Although many parents lack the time necessary to come to meetings after they get done with work, many different timetables can be offered.  I believe that if we are going to expect our parents to offer more to their children in the arena of value and academic feedback, then we as an educational community must offer more to the parents in the way of guidance and support.

Open communication: Although connecting with students will increase open communication, I believe that teachers need to foster open lines of communication with parents, other teachers, and the larger community also.  Go beyond the requisite weekly newsletter and talk about things that matter.  In emails or other correspondence, attach links to articles on the educational issues of the day.  If you are integrating values such as honesty, responsibility, and respect let parents know and give them helpful hints about how they can reinforce these ideas.  Remember that the best communicators listen first.

Encourage the outside world: Encourage students to bring in artifacts from the world outside the school.  This may mean having a parent, grandparent, or neighbor visit the classroom.  It may mean allowing the student to bring in something from their home culture and share it with the class.  What better way to discover and discuss what people value than to share pieces of our lives?  Use every moment you have to show your students that the world of learning goes beyond the classroom.

Increase the use of living resources: Every school system is facing financial challenges.  This does not mean that opportunities for students should suffer, in fact it is more important when a school is struggling financially to continue to offer opportunities that reinforce the value of education.  Get to know the community you teach in and use the human resources in that community to enrich your teaching.  If you are a female teacher, connect with a male teacher or another man from the community to come in and offer another version of a role model for the students.  If your community is rich in the arts, set aside part of an afternoon to have a guest artist come in and work with the students.

What is the value of teaching values in the schools?  I believe the value lies in being able to show children different ways of learning and living so that they can choose values that work best for them and will help them create a flourishing life.

Resources:

Here is a great parent education site: http://www.parentseducationnetwork.org/Workshops
More information for parents: http://www.solutionsforamerica.org/healthyfam/parent-education.html
If you want to keep up on education news: http://www.nytimes.com/pages/education/index.html

A teacher transformed

           I set forth on this project to see how other people view the issue of teaching/reinforcing values in schools, but I feel called to continue it because something in the process has hit me.  The responses that I received on the topic of why we should teach values have set forth a change in me.  My respondents emphasized the importance of the school as a catalyst for creating successful citizens.  While reflecting I became conscious of the importance of creating global citizens, but I believe it goes even further.  We say that teachers are helping to form citizens for the future, but I think the future is now.  The little lives that are in your classroom do not start once they graduate high school, or get a job, or get married; they have already started.  The stuff that we teach, the values we reinforce or introduce do not go on the backburner of student minds for use at a later date; that date is now.  A video from TED that I watched during my Paideia class sparked this realization.  It was a video of a talk given by Chris Lehmann called Education is broken.  Within the talk Mr. Lehmann emphasized that the future that we are educating our students for is now.  This struck me because of the absolute truth of the idea.  This idea that the future is now, has caused me to look at my blog and its findings in a new way.

            If we help kids, by acting as facilitators, to find out what they truly believe in and value, we can help them live for now and not for the day they leave our hallowed halls.  I see the role of the educator as someone who is willing to stimulate student growth by encouraging students to challenge now, so they can find out now what will make their own lives flourish.

           If we want to create citizens of our country and the world, we need to create people who know what they believe.  We cannot continue turning out students who do not know anything about how to be a person in our ever-changing society.  Many parents are no longer offering the base of values and learning that is expected of them.  Teachers and schools are: “routinely called on to provide solutions to personal, social, and political problems that the home and other institutions either will not or cannot resolve" (National Commission on Excellence in Education).  While this is not a great reality, it is the reality we face.  I say lets move on, move beyond the blame and try and figure out what to do now.  

          A few classes ago my education professor accused me of making excuses for the pitfalls of the American education system.  Although it was said in jest, it stuck with me.  All of the discussion of values has brought me to the point in my own education where I am ready to move beyond the blame and try and figure out what I am going to do.  Too often I am willing to shirk certain responsibilities because I have a passion for early childhood teaching.  Don’t get me wrong, I love dissecting and discussing issues, I just am never quick to adopt the issues as my own.  I am guilty of categorizing the problems in our schools, and I tend to think that early childhood has such a long set of its own unique issues, that someone else can fix the rest of the problems.  This response blog has brought everything home for me.  I am a teacher- fifth grade issues are my issues; third grade issues are my issues, just as kindergarten issues are everyone’s issues.  Too often I let the problems divide me, but really we are all in this together.  In setting out to try to learn about values, I have learned the value of my own education.

The universality of values

When I set out to have people respond to number four: are there any dangers in teaching values or are some values universal, I thought that everyone would say values are a dangerous path and teachers should tread carefully.  I was surprised with the theme that emerged in my responses; most people have a list of what they think are universal values.  Just to clarify when I say universal values, I mean ethical or belief systems that people from all walks of life, cultures, and societies would cite as important for people to adhere to.  Most respondents firmly believe that when it comes to values, we all treasure some of the same.

"Ethics is not about being part of any culture; it's about being human. Whatever your background, culture, language, etc., a successful society cannot operate without basic rights, freedoms, and responsibilities that direct human conduct."

"I think there are certain universal values in the world that override cultural differences.  Values like honesty, respect, responsibility, cooperation, and tolerance."

"I think that almost any culture can support values such as honesty, respect, responsibility, loyalty, etc. without fail."

"There are certain universal values that are hopefully being taught at home and then reinforced at school. Values such as respect, honesty, and kindness are part of every culture, and are necessary in order to make schools and societies function well."

"Labeling certain values as universal can be tricky, but I think the ones that should be taught in schools are the ones that benefit everyone and make the world a healthier living environment, such as respect and honesty."

"When I think of what values I would want my students to possess, these are the ones that come to mind: respect, integrity, self-motivation, care and consideration for others (people, animals, planet). I feel like these are pretty universal, and would be appropriate for all school settings."

Were you paying attention?  Did you notice some common values within the response samples?  Respect, honesty, and responsibility look to play a part in all of the responses.  The streamlined effect of these responses, each from a different person, fascinates me.  If I was previously not a believer in certain values that our American culture holds dear, I definitely see a pattern now.  These responses tell me that these three values are incredibly important in the United States.  Call me naive, but since our culture is made up of many other cultures and belief systems, and the people in this salad bowl culture see these three as important values, then I think that these responses point to a universality of values.  Maybe these words all mean a little something different depending on where you are examining them, but I think the basic idea holds true.  We all seek three values in each other, respect, responsibility, and honesty.  Where can we learn these?  Well that is a question for a new blog post!

Part of a Large Society

Many respondents cited the need to prepare students to be part of the larger society as a justification for teaching values in the schools.  In order to be members of society, children need to be socialized in its values.  That socialization happens for many children in school.  The idea of creating successful citizens seemed especially attractive to my respondents.

"School is a part of preparation for life in society and these are the kind of values that help us live peacefully and successfully."

"Teachers have a wonderful opportunity to not only help students becomes successful academically, but successful as citizens as well."

"Schools in the U.S. are preparatory tools for building, shaping, and encouraging better citizens.  Schools can act as a catalyst or an enforcer of things that are being taught at home, church, and community events."

"If the conversation is healthy, informative, and thought-provoking/encouraging, than each student will have the opportunity to create their own understanding of their values and ultimately become better citizens in the process."

"I believe that a major part of our responsibilty as teachers is to prepare our students to be successful in society."

"Curriculum development across the board should include an emphasis on what it means to be human, to live in society, and get along with each other. Schools are microcosms of society—I agree with the whole 'Everything I Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten' idea.  Schools function better if the students learn how to behave as good school citizens, and students transition better into functioning members of society  because of what they’ve learned in school."

While I agree that one of the functions of education is to prepare our children to be citizens, I think that we must remember that we are preparing them for a different kind of citizenship than we were 50 years ago.  Global citizenship is not just a buzzword anymore, it is a reality that we as teachers and fellow members of society need to apply importance to.  We are now preparing our children to become not only citizens of the society or societies they grew up in, but also possible citizens of the world.  Education in my mind has never been more important than it is now, especially if it is fulfilling the capacity that my respondents cited, teaching values in order to create good citizens.

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Who should be teaching children values?

This question evolved from the responses that I received to my original questions and the way in which it evolved struck me.  When I posed the question of who has a right to teach children their values, I got a lot of passionate responses.  For the most part I received the same answer, parents have the right and the responsibility to teach their children values.

Family/Parents:
"Ideally, one would hope that parents are playing a key role in the development of their children's values but I think that it is becoming more and more of the case where the parents are not playing a significant role in their child's education."


"It is not the responsibility of the school to explicitly teach values.  The values that are inherent in the school’s policies and behavior expectations must reflect the values of the community, which includes the values of the families that send their children to school.  When the community includes differing values, the school must make room for those differences."

"Teachers and parents have a responsibility to model those values so that children may learn how to demonstrate them throughout their schooling and life outside of school."

"I believe it is the parents’ responsibility to teach values.  I do not believe that it is the school’s responsibility to be active teachers of variables, as in direct-instruction."




I would agree with these sentiments when I take them into reference for myself and my life.  But when I apply them to the students that I have come into contact with, I am left feeling less certain.
I see a growing disconnection in children.  A disconnection from the nuclear family, from a set beliefs system, and from society itself.  Maybe a reason for this is as our society becomes more globalized, people are no longer certain that their set of beliefs is the "right" one.  In our search for a more interconnected world, we are detaching ourselves.  One of my respondents spoke directly to my thoughts in this quote:

"...the problem our society faces is that perhaps within the last 20 years, parents are increasingly not accepting that challenge (the challenge of teaching values).  I think part of that is that they have become more globally aware, their world is larger than their parents' or grandparents'.  They have less certainty that their way is the right way.  They want to be politically correct but sometimes it just amounts to wishy-washy.  Kids really do want to know what their parents think and why they think it."

Lets talk about important values for schools to teach:

I asked my respondents: What values do you feel are important to teach in schools?  These are some of the things they said.


"I think everyone in a society has the responsibility to model the virtues that make us all human: trustworthiness, respect, fairness, responsibility, caring, citizenship."  


"Values such as honesty, teamwork, and healthy competition"


"I feel that is important to model and promote values in schools such as respect, tolerance, kindness and honesty."

"Children need to experience values such as respect, responsibility, cooperation/collaboration,kindness, and tolerance in school."

I would agree with all of these folks.  I think that through the use of modeling in the classroom, these values can be taught.  Integrating these values into lessons and daily school life will create a comfortable and safe place in which students can learn.  Necessity is the mother of invention and our students need to be given values that will help them construct a meaningful life.  These sets of values will translate well into society because I believe that they are all things that we expect from each other.  They will allow our students to function and lead a flourishing life beyond the schoolyard.  Although being intentional about modeling behaviors is sometimes hard to fit in, I think that in the long run it will pay off.  Being a part of a classroom climate where certain values and behaviors are taught and expected will not only enrich the students' learning experiences, but also the teacher's ability to convey that learning.  We can go on and on about the various pitfalls of integrating these values into our schools but the fact of the matter is that the presence of these values will enhance our students' learning for school and for life.

Introduction

It is my last semester at Luther College, and man are the powers that be making me think!  My Paideia Capstone class is trying three times a week to make decisions for our U.S. school system.  For this section's response I have decided to invoke the use of technology to help me.  My ultimate question is should schools and teachers be teaching values to our students?  I recently emailed a few of my favorite people to see what they had to say on the topic of values in the schools.  This blog is devoted to those people and the discussion of the value of conveying values in our schools.

My sub-questions (the ones posed to my original contributors) are as follows:
1.  Do teachers and schools have the right or responsibility to convey their values to their students?  
2.  What values do you feel are important to teach in schools?
3.  Are there certain core beliefs of our society, that need to be emphasized in the classroom?
4.  Is there any danger in teaching values to children who come from different home cultures?  Or are certain values universal?