Values and Character – Why we must teach?

A recent Teacher’s Day card from a student got me to reflect on the case for teaching values and character.

So, how should schools teach values and character?

But before we can respond to that question, surely there will be teachers who would ask, “Whose values?” In this time and age where people holds different values, it seemed impossible to get agreement on which ones should be taught in schools.

Luckily for us, our Ministry of Education did not stay officially neutral on the subject of values. In 2010, our Education Minister Heng Swee Keat during the Work Plan seminar emphasized that values and character development are at the center of our education to prepare our students for a future which he describes as ‘more volatile and more uncertain’ – where he cited as examples of the escalating problems in society such as the riots in Britain, of man like ex-President Nathan who step forward to risk his life for our nation.

Now in all schools, there is this common goal – be the role of values’ teacher and character builder of our students. Of all the problems that have fueled this concern, I see none has been more disturbing than the alarming increase of youth violence in our country in 2010. Moreover, such youth crimes often carried out by kid-next-door youths seemed to combine new lows in brutality with seeming lack of conscience or remorse, some even continue to act defiantly.

I feel that in today’s society, there is a widespread, deeply unsettling sense that our youth are changing – in ways that tell me much about us adults as a society. And these changes are reflected not just in the violence of our teenagers’ behaviors but in the everyday speech and actions of our youth inside and outside school as well. Students described as ‘student leaders’ coaxing a birthday male student to wear a signed bra and run around the school. Student putting urine into a fellow classmate’s water bottle as both he and the rest of the class watched him drank from the water bottle. What is the problem that resulted in such values deficiencies? Some teachers would say from troubled families, others blamed the mass media and also the internet. Indeed, I think that such reasons are why schools must now get involved in our students’ values and character building education.

Not surprisingly, many youths growing up in this kind of media and internet culture are stunted in their moral judgment. Simultaneously, increasing affluence in our society has resulted in greed and materialism which is also engulfing us. Money increasingly drives our society and shapes the values and goals of our youths.

The most basic kinds of moral knowledge, moreover, seem to be disappearing from our common culture. Luckily for the students of our school, the situation is not that bad.

Nevertheless, I believe that schools must do what they can to contribute to the character of the young and the values of the nation. As for me, I will continue to play my small part, starting from all my classes with two goals whenever I teach: to help my students excel academically and to help them develop good values and character.