Newsletter Spring 2009 - Earli

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Newsletter from EARLI SIG 13 Moral and Democratic Education – Issue # 3EARLI 2009 CONFERENCE• an appropriate training in dealing with values issues.• Some teachers say that they cannot bring forward the courage to go into value• communication with students.• According to most of the teachers there are too many students in their classes so that• they cannot provide the individual attention that would be necessary for moral education.• And finally they say that there are separate lessons for moral education anyway, such as• religious, political and ethical subject matters, that take care of this issue so that they do• not need to do it in addition to this.To this one can oppose the following:• Any teaching and education has to do with values: Education is defined as an attempt to• achieve goals, and the definition of goals necessarily depends on values. One can argue• (rightly) that the goals are defined by curriculum; nevertheless a teacher will have• additional goals (e.g., with respect to social behavior) and will have his or her own• interpretation of the curriculum with respect to values issues. This may also be• influenced by the goals and mission of the school as an organization, particularly if the• school is devoted to a specific set of values (e.g. schools with a religious domination, or• schools devoted to a particular worldview or schools that are following a special• ‘pedagogic-didactical’ program, such as Montessori,etc.• This is closely linked with the fact that any subject matter is values laden. It is• impossible to teach a topic without communicating, openly or tacitly, certain values• about the subject matter. This holds for literary and history issues, as well as for science• and mathematics. Without being aware of it, the teacher can and will communicate• attitudes (which are values statements with respect to a particular object) about the• content of his or her teaching to his or her students.• For the optimization of learning processes it is important to offer the subject matter to• the student in the form of authentic contexts. Authentic learning tries to take into• account the real life situations of the students, their learning processes outside of the• schoolyard and the many external learning sources which ask for a transfer of school• knowledge and real-life experiences. These learning arrangements are characterized• by various social and cultural influences and bearers of several, often competing,• values. Students have to learn to discover these values embedded in the learning• process as well as in the subject content.• Education is interaction, and any social interaction has necessarily a values component:• We influence each other, and this influence requires responsibility in ‘the communities• of practice’ (Wenger) in which we participate. This is the issue of ethos. This includes,• but is not restricted to, issues of interaction among the students (e.g., intervening in• cases of mobbing among students, etc.)38
Newsletter from EARLI SIG 13 Moral and Democratic Education – Issue # 3EARLI 2009 CONFERENCE• Education is always an activity within the school as a community and organization as• well as the society at large, which requires taking into account also the values that are• relevant on these levels.The relationship between teaching subject matters and doing moral and values educationis a constant problem. We propose that the SIG 13 should be devoted to providingscientific foundations for a sound teaching that takes into account both the content issuesand the values issues. This refers also to other educational domains, like families, educationalinstitutions, etc. This means that the SIG 13 understands itself as an institution thatconstantly reminds the education community of the values issues in education.In particular, we propose that the following questions be important for the future asresearch topics:• The interplay between subject matters and values in teaching;• Ethical issues in social interaction in educational settings (ethos);• The interplay of knowledge, values and experiences in authentic learning processes.• Basic research on the development of morality and on possibilities to improve it• (e.g., accelerate a positive development);• Analysis of values issues in any field of education both descriptively (what values are• effective in the educational settings, such as what goals do educators have?) and• prescriptively (how are these values justified?);• Reflection about meta-theoretical issues involving values, such as how to justify values• in education etc.These issues, particularly the latter ones, go beyond the restrictive field of moral educationbut it seems to us that they cannot be omitted if one wants to account for the fullscope of morality in education – and this is, in our opinion, one sense of SIG 13.39
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Newsletter Spring 2009 - Earli

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