Values and Values Education: Challenges for Faith Schools
Parents often choose faith schools because of their clear values, but it is not necessarily clear what this term means or how far the provision in faith schools is distinctive. This chapter explores key concepts and argues that values and values education represent both a major strength in and a major challenge to faith schools. Because of their consistent ethos and agreed framework of values, faith schools are able to provide sound and authoritative moral guidance to children (‘primary values education’), helping them to understand right and wrong and to behave in line with the shared values of their community. However, if young people are to make the values they learn in faith schools truly their own (‘secondary values education’), they need to learn to question their assumptions, to engage in critical thinking, to develop their moral imaginations, to be open to change and to learn the techniques of critical reflection and rational debate. These things may not come quite so easily to faith schools because of their reliance on authority and a clear, pre-determined framework of values, but without them young people may never attain moral maturity. Teachers in faith schools need to reflect carefully on their approach to values education to make sure they are developing students’ full potential and leading them towards personal and moral autonomy.
The obstacles to preparing ethical teachers for Arab schools in Israel: The case of one Arab college of education
ABSTRACT This multiple case study explores the obstacles to preparing prospective Arab teachers to deal with values/moral issues, from the perspective of Arab teacher educators in one Arab college of teacher education in Israel. In-depth interviews with 13 teacher educators were conducted and analysed. Four obstacles were reported by teacher educators. The first was the scholastic-oriented curriculum in their college and the exclusive focus on developing the student teacher’s technical skills, disciplinary knowledge and intellectual capacities. The second was related to the teacher educators’ qualifications—their motivation and professional awareness with respect to dealing with values/moral issues in their courses. The third was related to the quality of the student teachers, their desire to become teachers, their commitment and their understanding of the moral work of teaching. The fourth pertained to the college of education’s culture and the lack of a systemic policy of preparation for values education.
The Influence of the Supervision of Psychotherapy upon being Therapeutic: II: Modes of Influence of the Supervisory Relationship *
Through supervision, the student develops those innate personal characteristics which are highly important in being therapeutic. In making conscious use of “reality identification” by the student with his teacher, we must take care to avoid certain pitfalls. What is not wanted is transference identification. To help avoid this, we must select appropriate teachers as supervisors. The student should also have more than one supervisor, as this tends to protect against the development of over-idealization on the part of the student, and of omnipotence on the part of the teacher. Personal characteristics of both students and supervisors are extremely important. A good supervisory experience is the most likely vehicle for developing those qualities in the student which will, in time, lead him to function most therapeutically.