Giving Voice to the Impacts of Values Education The Final Report of ...

Story 11: Parent story
I’ve given a lot of thought to the whole notion
of values since I’ve been involved in this project
and I think that’s been…a good opportunity
for me to think about these sort of things in a
structured way. I think I had quite strong views
at the beginning of the project that values was
obviously an important part of education but it
was mostly a responsibility for parents, and that
school was about reinforcing what we teach our
children at home, in a more implicit way. And
I think that had been validated for me because
Emma’s teacher in Year 1 is really good at that
implicit sort of values education. I’ve seen her do
it myself and the stuff that Emma talks about at
home about school reflects that as well.
But I think having been involved in the project
and having spoken to parents and teachers and
seen the children interact, and the different
activities they’ve been involved in, I’ve realised
that the explicit side is equally important because
I think children do develop an inherent ability to
differentiate between right and wrong behaviour.
And they tend to know when they’ve made the
wrong choice, but they can’t always articulate
that in terms of values. So to be able to teach
children to communicate in terms of values, and
to be able to link their behaviour to a particular
value, is just such a fantastic tool for them as
they grow up and become citizens…
So I’m now clearer in my mind that explicit
values education is as important as the implicit
stuff. I think they go together, and I think I’ve
got a clearer picture of how our responsibility as
parents, in terms of values education, can connect
with what happens at school, and I suppose the
challenge…is how you continue to facilitate that
cooperation and that commonality in terms of
values language…
Story 12: Student story
Before today, I thought poverty was just another
English word from the dictionary. I didn’t know
anything about it. Until Mrs Wigley came in…and
we did a bit of brainstorming on what we knew
of poverty. And then I realised, hang on a second,
I know a lot about poverty here. ‘Cause my dad
came from England, and everyone thinks, ‘Oh
England’s got London, heaps of people there’. But
if you go to the western side of England, there’s
not many people there. It’s more country and
land, and that’s where my dad grew up. And you
see people living on the street.
When the Big Day In came…the person that
talked about India…[and] said how they’re living
there. And I realised, ‘Hang on a second, we need
to change what they’re doing here’. If they’re
going not to have a good life, if they find a plastic
bottle, don’t just chuck it away, if you were in
India. They’d keep it and you might get a dollar
out of it, and that could buy a bit of, a bowl of
rice or some water. Maybe some milk. And when
I saw these pictures, I realised they were sleeping
on bricks, with maybe just a cloth over it, so it
would keep them a little clean. And they had to
work when they were about three years old, and
they didn’t have a good education. Now where’s
children’s rights in here Children deserve to
have a home…and they deserve to have a bed to
sleep in at least. Well that’s what I thought. But
these people don’t. They have to sleep on just
bricks. So I, our school…are trying to help fix this
problem with all the…[other cluster schools] by
putting fundraisers and like ...[one of the other
schools], maybe giving, buying a well and giving
it to them.
Section 1: Looking for the impacts of values education
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