Values-based Education… What Could Be Wrong With That?

[DrBlackbird]

Attended a talk at my uni by the new Pro VC Education whose vision for our education strategy is that it must be ‘values-based’. Caveat is our uni has swallowed the kool aid.

Got me thinking that not so many years ago, I’d have interpreted this vision in a positive light. That having and promoting ’values’ was a part of education. Admittedly, the values in my head would be tolerance, free speech, rigorous debate base on evidence and critical thought.

Now… I’m wondering if having a values based strategy was wrong all along? If ‘inclusive’ values has lead to the erosion of women’s sex based rights and neglect of consideration for some religious observances, not to mention the breathtaking lack of safeguarding for children and young people, should we avoid values as on objective?

Am thinking out loud here. I was going to post this in the academic common room threads, but thought FWR posters might have more to say on this question. Has anything value based always been contentious or is it increasingly contentious because of where we have got to with these putatively inclusive debates?

My view is that a corporate body of any kind cannot have any values since said body is not a thinking human. The corporate body can have aims and objectives, but not a set of values or even an ethos because values are beliefs that only human individuals can possess or own.

This is an interesting line of thought. Not even for a university? Upholding values of free speech or academic enquiry for example?

Although admittedly it’s the gender ideology that has permeated our institution that has led me to rethink the axiomatic belief that HE values are always self evidently ‘good’ i.e. liberal western ideals.

In turn, it started me thinking about values more broadly and that being driven by values for our teaching strategy is problematic.

upholding Freedom of speech or academic enquiry is not a value at all as it places no value on any point of view or line of enquiry. It says we are free of values. Values are a moral declaration, positional, and exclusive. So a value adopted by a corporation such as a university will exclude anyone who disagrees with said value.

But then what is the point of a university? Are your virtue signalling instead of signalling your ability?

Given the cost of US higher education, that seems a steep price for virtue signalling.

@MrGHardy i have no idea what you are saying or to whom

I wont boycott either because when trans inclusive values reap no more profit they will move on, because they, not being a person , have made no more profits from that “value”

That makes no sense. Most businesses measure value of campaigns in profit, so if people boycott then profit reduces and they move on quicker. If you don’t support their campaign then boycotting can speed that on.

But even businesses do not exist purely in a capitalistic market place, they are ultimately owned and run by people and those people have their own values. Those values may be make as much money as possible through the selling or armaments and if they are used on civilian populations - well that means they need to buy more. But many business owners and managers have values which place limits on what they are prepared to do, or set up the business to actively promote ideas that align with their values and do so despite loss of revenue.

Skills based education" can be contentious in itself because it doesn't put any priority on learning critical or independent thinking. Which is something that education is supposed to be about, as well as skills

Ah I've always seen skills based as including problem solving, critical thinking, lateral thinking, creativity, debate etc. And had the 'privilege' (I now see it as) to both have those in my own education but also remember them being a big part of teacher training. And many of my colleagues do too.

Independent thinking and practise is a skill in itself. Closely linked to debate skills and creative skills. Critical analysis of sources.

Knowledge is no good unless you know what do with it.

Agree with pp that values is too closely associated with belief and ideology.

Dh is in a professional industry and has noticed that students he teaches at university now (as an industry visitor) lack a lot of the skills I mentioned. He often says they seem to be too spoon fed and lack creative/ lateral / critical thinking skills. And that his profession will suffer longer term as a result.

The point was made that universities can go for teaching facts or they can teach 'values'.

My question is, what value (in the job market) will someone have who was taught 'values'? One can argue that nowadays many degrees are just a signal and not directly applicable to jobs, so I am asking what value does a signal for 'value' have. One can virtue signal much more cheaply than a university degree.

Critical thinking is a skill.

I have some conflicting thoughts.

Not all institutions in society have the same purpose. So in universities, for example, I think truth and sometimes excellence are intrinsic to their fulfilling their social function. That may mean they are not, for example, fully inclusive of people who struggle academically. That is ok.

Another is that in a society with many different types of people and cultures (which we are supposed to be for,) you will always have areas of differing values. And a public education system, if it supports pluralism of this kind, would have to avoid these conflicting areas.

Another is that every system of education is based on a set of values that structures what it understands education to be, and knowledge itself. It's no good pretending that it doesn't, because then those assumed values or ideas are misunderstood as neutral or self-evident, which is untrue. Being educated (according to my values) means understanding what underlying assumptions we are making in our own thinking, and why we accept those.

The way I tend to think of it in the end is that in a pluralistic society, which is a democracy, what we need to create is the person who can function in a liberal democracy. So, values would be around a good understanding of history and nature and science, an ability to think rationally about all kinds of ideas and discuss them.

And also a secular approach, by which I do not mean non-religious. I mean one which does not explicitly take up or privilege one particular worldview, be it religious or not. So not Catholic or Muslim, and not humanist or marxist either.

Which is quite a tall order, and in practice I think often, good faith school are better at this than state schools that are supposedly secular, because the former ae open about their educational philosophy, and the latter like to pretend it is just what knows to be true.

There is a thread in AIBU right now about school debate topics. Quite a few people believe that things that can be debated in school should be very limited. And I think a lot of teachers follow that approach to, either because they believe it or don't want to get in the shit.

So it is not surprising that the kids coming out of that system can't think through ideas.

@TempestTost Yes saw that. Value based teaching begs the question whose values are they? Who is the arbiter? At the appropriate age children should be asked do discuss contentious issues.

Back in my day we talked about abortion, were black people inferior, does religion matter. I would be in favour of a debate at school such as can you change your biological sex?

it draw out prejudices, true and false information, they may hold and helps people formulate their own opinion's. Value based education would have the opposite effect.

Just wanted to throw in there that I don’t think critical thinking is a ‘skill’ that can actually be taught though I know that this runs counter to very many texts written on the subject. I think we can give our students help / tips in terms of metacognitive strategies as an initial first level towards critical thinking.

However, to take it to a meaningful level, I firmly see critical thinking as inescapably intertwined with domain knowledge. In that, you need to know about something in order to think critically about it and the more you know, the better you can do that. It’s hard work and takes time and effort!

Anyhow, will catch up with other thoughts.

After just finishing marking some first years, some of their comments are along the lines of ‘you need to quantify every evaluation metric and precisely tell me exactly what I need to do to meet them’… and a bit pissed off sounding that we haven’t.

Understandable in that throughout school they’re told exactly what they need to do to get that A or Level 9 and it is uncomfortable and goes against what they’ve being taught to suddenly be confronted with ‘no right answer’ at uni.

It is not their fault. It is largely the rational outcome of an education system that is run by ratings and metrics and rewards (and punishments) for educational institutions tied to those metrics. Started with good intentions, but the tail wags the dog now to tragic results. For students and for Heads such as Ruth Perry.

Yes, this is very true, but it goes against a few educational trends.

There is an increasing tendency to say that because so much information is available now, you don't have to learn about stuff and have it in your mind. The problem with that is, you have to have information help in your mind in order to make guesses about what kinds of analysis to use, or to make links between facts.

I do think there are other things things that can be done to develop thinking skills. Debates, real essay writing, and study of history and philosophical topics.

I agree that critical thinking in inextricably linked with domain knowledge. Education needs to teach both knowledge and skills, no matter how unfashionable that seems to have become.

Students simply do need to know things. Without sufficient knowledge they have no way to even learn the skills of critical thinking.

Just wanted to throw in there that I don’t think critical thinking is a ‘skill’ that can actually be taught though I know that this runs counter to very many texts written on the subject. I think we can give our students help / tips in terms of metacognitive strategies as an initial first level towards critical thinking.

Yes you are right and a lot depends on what the subject context is. And certainly some people are more open and interested in being able to think critically than others. I suppose it's up to the individual to decide to continue that particular skill across other areas of their life, outside formal education.

At the same time, how much time a curriculum is willing to give on fostering that is really important imo. Vygotsky's 'zone of proximal development' is useful here. All skills need a basic knowledge, that goes without saying. It's how you apply the knowledge, that's the skill. Pull it all together and in different contexts. And being given enough time to practise, in different ways. I do feel it's less of a focus in the primary curriculum these days.

The more time spent on appropriately scaffolded ZPD at a younger age, that might focus on a level of critical thought and debate, the more likely they are to learn those skills across other areas.

How students are questioned and challenged by educators is really important, especially if we want to teach not taking things at face value. Particularly open ended questioning. But educators themselves need to have had that experience of being able to question something from many angles themselves. And be a devil's advocate. (Hence importance of free speech, debate and critical thinking skills)

Tbh if you're going to achieve any of the above, all very important for any profession, a key value you should encompass and encourage is around freedom of speech, debate and inquiry.

The more those at the top demonstrate their own ability to both be critical thinkers and welcome respectful critical debate and thought, the more it becomes a natural part of how an organisation works. (Really important for safeguarding, actually. An org must be self reflective and self critical.)

I'm keen to learn what these "values" are, you never know, could be revolutionary - when is the big reveal?!😄

(Piaget, Vygotsky and von Glasersfeld explained here for anyone interested www.phoenix.edu/blog/what-is-constructivism.html)

Every dictatorship ever has been based on 'values'.
Statements like 'values-based education' are produced from a complete lack of thought - exactly like the lazy 'everybody thinks' attitude. Everybody in your particular bubble perhaps, but the whole town, country, world?
Very much agree with pps about the importance of knowledge for critical thinking; searching the Internet for information if you know nothing about a subject is very difficult. It's why I provide a carefully curated library of books and databases. But it's hard to convince students that a little more effort (more than typing an essay question into google) will help them to a better understanding.

Form the chalk face, with the 'knowledge rich curriculum,' this was lost in translation at primary level. Schools were told regularly that Ofsted wanted to see what knowledge was being taught. This has definitely had an unintended consequence of more focus on rote style learning of facts. Teaching has definitely felt "empty vessel" like in the last few years. Anti Piaget.

And we've seen how those 'facts' get used here. Boys can become girls, no debate.

I agree! I think it is possible to teach "critical thinking" but it has certain conditions. First, it certainly is a skill in that it's something you can learn to do, and do better. However, it's a very high level skill, and one which does not automatically emerge fully formed out of the accumulation of lower level skills because it involves the application of educated judgement. It can't be taught just through lectures, or through tick box activities on websites. It needs a complex but clear interaction between teacher and student and between students and their peers. It is very expensive in terms of time and teacher attention. It requires discipline, but also engrossed activity - it's hard!

I completely agree that you can't critically evaluate something you don't know about. So, domain knowledge? Absolutely!

Values based education can’t work because we do not all share the same values. Schools were for a while a neutral space where children could go to learn maths, science, languages, etc., no matter what belief system they came from. If their families believed that we’re all ruled by space lizards inside a mountain or in an angry god who’ll burn sinners in hell, that was stuff for outside school: schools were a place of fact.

And then teaching that some belief systems are better than others was allowed to creep in, and now we’re in a mess because children are taught things at school that clash with what they learn at home, and also taught ideology-based lies such as we do not criticise paedophiles because it’s not their fault they’re ‘minor attracted persons’ and hey maybe the age you are (12) isn’t the age you identify with (16) and if your age 50 boyfriend identifies as age 16 too then all is good.

I’m continually surprised that schools don’t teach children what the law is.

It is very expensive in terms of time and teacher attention.

It is.

But it's important.

If it is not "valued" by the teacher training institutions, new teachers will not see it as a valuable skill.

It's ideology.

It's fine if it aligns with your political and religious views.

Not so fine if it doesn't.

We moved away from this system in favour of reason and secularism because it was less vulnerable to this.

Ideology plus medicine or education is always a bad mix.

Yep was just thinking that values based = ideology.

And the "facts" and "knowledge" are enmeshed within a more rigid framework as a result. That does not allow room for free debate. Challenge of the "knowledge" being taught.

You can't separate skills and knowledge but you can certainly dampen down how knowledge is used by individuals with 'no debate.'

I'd be very happy if one of the core values was "thou shalt not rely on twinkl and the gospels of twinkl facebook groups for everything I teach."