The Little Book of Values E-Book

Julie Duckworth

• Herausgeber: Crown House Publishing
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Serie: The Little Books
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2009

Seitenzahl: 118

Beschreibung

The Little Book of Values explores twenty-two values that can be taught through schools and indeed the whole community. The book will inspire you by using examples of where values are being used by children and adults in schools already and shares practical tools to stimulate discussion and philosophical debate. It will also help people to take stock of their own values and how they wish to lead their.

Leseprobe

THE LITTLE BOOK OFVALUES

Educating children to become thinking,confident, responsible and caring citizens

Julie DuckworthEdited by Ian Gilbert

Crown House Publishing Limited

www.crownhouse.co.uk – www.crownhousepublishing.com

First published by

Crown House Publishing LtdCrown Buildings, Bancyfelin, Carmarthen, Wales, SA33 5ND, UKwww.crownhouse.co.uk

and

Crown House Publishing Company LLC6 Trowbridge Drive, Suite 5, Bethel, CT 06801, USAwww.crownhousepublishing.com

© Julie Duckworth 2009

The right of Julie Duckworth to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published 2009. Reprinted 2009.

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owners. Enquiries should be addressed to Crown House Publishing Limited.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication DataA catalogue entry for this book is availablefrom the British Library.

ISBN 978-184590135-6eBook ISBN 978-184590431-9

LCCN 2008936823

Printed and bound in the UK byAthenaeum Press, Gateshead, Tyne and Wear

This book is dedicated to my familyand friends for their unconditionallove of one another

Contents

Acknowledgements

Foreword

The Values of Values

The Values

Appreciation

Caring

Co-operation

Courage

Freedom

Friendship

Happiness

Honesty

Hope

Humility

Love

Patience

Peace

Quality

Respect

Responsibility

Simplicity

Thoughtfulness

Tolerance

Trust

Understanding

Unity

The Values Toolbox

Bibliography

Acknowledgements

When growing up as part of a huge, extended family I didn’t appreciate the inherent values which were embedding themselves into my personality. Saturday afternoons spent with cardboard boxes and foil-covered sticks, fighting aliens and monsters, working in unity as a team in the face of adversity – all were the foundations for the values I developed. Sunday roast dinner spent with grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings and cousins laid the values of respect, happiness and, on the odd occasion, tolerance. My daughters have inherited this legacy and have an even larger extended family with which to learn and grow.

In 2003 I became head teacher of a primary school in England and was fortunate to work with Bridget Knight and Dr Neil Hawkes introducing Values Education into the primary school. I recognised that the aspects and tools they were teaching me through introducing Values Education were the same ones I had developed as a child.I would like to thank both Neil and Bridget for encouraging and supporting me on my journey through developing Values Education.

I would also like to thank my family, colleagues, friends and the many pupils who have always provided their own insight into how values work in their own lives. My sincere thanks to Caroline, David, Rosalie, Beverley and Tom at Crown House Publishing for their support and advice. Also a huge ‘thank you’ to my Independent Thinking Ltd associates who energise each other to make a positive difference to the lives of children across the world.

Finally, to Ian Gilbert who has been an inspirational leader and fabulous midwife in delivering this book: I am eternally grateful for your honesty and friendship. The umbilical cord is now cut.

Foreword

What are your values? What are the main principles that guide you in your thoughts and actions? If you are paying a bill at a restaurant and you notice that the waiter has forgotten to charge you for that third crème de menthe frappé do you say nothing and hope he won't notice or do you point it out (in the slim chance that perhaps he'll let you off in return for your honesty, or at least your sense of style)?

Most people have a sense of right and wrong, how and how not to behave. But where do these values come from? And what if mine are different from yours? What if you were to write a list of the values that you felt were most significant? Which would come out on top? What would happen if you were to turn the list upside down?

When you start to think like this, to look at the idea of values more deeply, you start to realise that you carry with you what you could call an ethical DNA – a set of instructions hard-wired into your brain that will determine your behaviours without you even realising it much of the time.

For example – and feel free to try this as an exercise with your friends and family – what if you were to write a list of your top five values and it came out looking something like this:

1. Happiness

2. Love

3. Unity

4. Care

5. Honesty

Such a set of instructions would help create a person who was always keen to look at the bright side of things, always avoided conflict, made sure others were happy and their needs cared for before their own, committed to keeping everyone together and smiling. Sound like someone you know? Your mother maybe? (That’s if she’s a good one, not one of the evil ones.)

What if you turned the values upside down:

1. Honesty

2. Care

3. Unity

4. Love

5. Happiness

Now you have someone who, above all, will say what they think and expect others to do the same. For them, such honesty shows that they care, even if the truth hurts at times. And can you really love someone if you are not being honest? ‘Lies is the opposite of love’ as it was once said. Only then can we even start to think about being happy.

Which of the two lists would you want your boss to have? Or your spouse? Or the President of the United States?

You can see how our values are right at the heart of who we are, driving what we do and how we do it. Imagine if you tried on one or two different values for size. How would your life change then? Try a 21-day free trial of a new value and see what happens. Look at Julie’s list on page 11 and pick one that isn’t currently riding high in your own Top 20 and then try it on for size. ‘Courage’ maybe? Like Dorothy’s cowardly lion, what would happen if you suddenly and consistently were far braver than you had ever been in the past? Would you walk into the head teacher’s office and say the professional equivalent of ‘Stick 'em up, stick 'em up!’? Or what about ‘humility’? How would your relationships change if you spent more time listening to others’ achievements than listing yours?

This ‘ethical DNA profile’ you carry around with you determines so much about your life, but where do the values you believe in come from? As Julie points out, for many of us they are put in place in the family home, from the moment we are born. Where there are dysfunctional families, though, you may get a very different set of values (which is different to having none at all – having no values is a value in itself). This is where school, a good school, can make all the difference to the growing child as a member of a community, as a citizen, as a friend and as an all-round and fully rounded human being.

And this is exactly what Values Education, as demonstrated so well in Julie’s work and now in this Little Book, attempts to do. It helps each adult and child across an entire school to understand, reflect on, think deeply about and become the living embodiment of a series of values that will stand them in remarkably good stead for the rest of their lives. All done in a way that hits so many school targets, ranging from thinking and enterprise skills to speaking, listening and citizenship.

Combining quotes and illustrations from many of her pupils with practical examples and exercises you can try, Julie looks in turn at each of the values she uses across the school year (and it is by no means a definitive list; you may want to use different ones for your own school). The process shows how values can be developed in children at a very young age but not in a didactic ‘Thou shalt’ and ‘Thou shall not’ sort of way. We’re not talking men with beards and tablets of stone here but a way of exploring human nature and interactions that is powerful and empowering in equal measure.

As a starting point for understanding and using values in your school, this book is all you need. However, one word of caution – walk your talk! We’re not just talking about an assembly on a particular value with a parable, a quick hymn and a mention in the school newsletter. You really do have to ‘live the dream’. If you spend the month focusing on, let’s say ‘tolerance’, but are the sort of teacher who is quick to explode, to blame, to punish, to shout or to act in any other way that is the embodiment of intolerance then you have a choice (a) you're in the wrong job so go, or (b) practice living the dream and learn how to develop your tolerance level.

So, plan your lessons with care, attend your staff meetings in the spirit of co-operation, eat your lunch with appreciation, write your school policies with simplicity, approach that angry parent with peace in your heart and greet that Ofsted inspector with love.

Ian Gilbert, Suffolk 2009

The Value of Values

The teacher

I have come to the frightening conclusion: I am the decisive element in the classroom. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my mood that makes the weather. As a teacher I possess tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humour, hurt or heal. In all situations it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated: a child humanised or dehumanised.

Haim Ginott, 1972

What is your passion?

The first teacher in space was to be Christa McAuliffe. She was part of the seven-man crew on the space shuttle Challenger. On 28 January 1986, the flight Christa was so proud to be a part of ended in tragedy when the spacecraft disintegrated over the Atlantic just 73 seconds into the mission.

Christa McAuliffe was selected from 11,000 teachers to be the educational link between space and the children on earth. Her passion lay in education and she encompassed all the values and ideals in which every teacher believes, and although she never got to report from space, she did a lot to inspire a new generation of children to dream about being a part of a future space programme. She also taught us that one of the greatest professions in the world is teaching. I live by her words: 'I touch the future. I teach.'

Do you have a passion in your life – a passion for someone or about something that drives you to pursue it at all times? The word passion has so many connotations, depending on context, but I often wonder how frequently it is used within the world of education.

I am passionate about life and especially my career as a teacher, and now a head teacher. Teaching in the primary sector for 20 years, it was always my desire to make a positive difference to children’s lives by valuing them as individuals. It is a privilege to be able to teach and know that you have the capacity to influence the future. Indeed, one of my former pupils is now teaching in the school where I first taught her.

I believe the fundamental quality of being a teacher is to have the passion to value your students so that each and every one of them feels as though they are your chosen one. When I recently asked a class of 10 and 11-year-olds what qualities they would find in their dream teacher, these were their answers:

  Is kind

  Is generous

  Listens to you

  Encourages you

  Has faith in you

  Keeps confidences

  Likes teaching children

  Takes time to explain things

  Helps you when you’re stuck

  Tells you how you are doing

  Allows you to have your say

  Doesn’t give up on you

  Cares for you

  Tells the truth

  Treats people equally

  Makes you feel clever

  Is trendy in clothes and ideas!

Scrutinise this list closely. The word ‘teaching’ appears only once, in the phrase ‘likes teaching children’, and there is nothing relating to instructing, but there are plenty of words and phrases associated with feeling valued. If we are going to touch the future and make a positive difference to this planet we all share then, yes, we have to teach children the skills required for them to gain knowledge, but the processes we adopt to deliver that teaching should be based on our principles as human beings. These principles are the universal values we all share, many of which you will find in this Little Book.

Reflection task:

Take a few moments to reflect on the word passion and recognise where it features in your own life. How do you convey that passion? Do you have an icon you admire and respect because of their passion and consequently their actions? How do you let other people know about your passion?

So what are values? It is values that drive our thinking and behaviour. We behave the way we do because of our internal set of values – our beliefs about ourselves and others that determine our actions, and influence how we behave. This affects the relationships we develop in life and the security we give to others within that relationship.

When I became a head teacher I had not heard about Values Education