TEACHING VALUES IN SCHOOL 1 
Teaching Values at School: a Way to Reach a Better Understanding in
Our World
Gabriele Harecker
Pädagogische Hochschule Niederösterreich, University of Education (Austria)
g.harecker@gmx.at
“Teachers are permanently involved in values education… sometimes … without even realizing that they are teaching values …” (Kohlberg & Turiel in PORTELE, p. 7)
Therefore it is time for us to pay more attention to values education in both teaching and at school. The requirements, tasks, possibilities and problems connected with the topic of values education in teaching and at school must be thought about carefully. Considerations must be made which contribute towards conveying such fundamental understanding and allowing teachers to both justify their own behaviour rationally in the context of school and to critically examine it.
1. Teaching for Value Clarity
The aim of values education is to encourage young people’s awareness of having values and their corresponding relationship to the world in which they live. It is therefore necessary to try and convey the idea of which values people in our society regard as necessary (and through which our society is shaped today).
A democratic society demands that an individual should have many skills, among them the skill to deal with conflicting values and to take independent decisions. It demands a critical faculty as well as competence to judge based on your moral principles. Democratic societies must therefore take an interest in that such skills be encouraged.
Educators and teachers as well as parents are not just there to practise behaviour based on values, but are mainly there to help adolescents to understand the rules which society has developed, to be able to apply them independently and also to participate in political discussions regarding any possible changes to these rules. For this reason, we need educators who do not insist on their own interpretation of moral principles, rather educators who help adolescents to develop
Our World
Gabriele Harecker
Pädagogische Hochschule Niederösterreich, University of Education (Austria)
g.harecker@gmx.at
“Teachers are permanently involved in values education… sometimes … without even realizing that they are teaching values …” (Kohlberg & Turiel in PORTELE, p. 7)
Therefore it is time for us to pay more attention to values education in both teaching and at school. The requirements, tasks, possibilities and problems connected with the topic of values education in teaching and at school must be thought about carefully. Considerations must be made which contribute towards conveying such fundamental understanding and allowing teachers to both justify their own behaviour rationally in the context of school and to critically examine it.
1. Teaching for Value Clarity
The aim of values education is to encourage young people’s awareness of having values and their corresponding relationship to the world in which they live. It is therefore necessary to try and convey the idea of which values people in our society regard as necessary (and through which our society is shaped today).
A democratic society demands that an individual should have many skills, among them the skill to deal with conflicting values and to take independent decisions. It demands a critical faculty as well as competence to judge based on your moral principles. Democratic societies must therefore take an interest in that such skills be encouraged.
Educators and teachers as well as parents are not just there to practise behaviour based on values, but are mainly there to help adolescents to understand the rules which society has developed, to be able to apply them independently and also to participate in political discussions regarding any possible changes to these rules. For this reason, we need educators who do not insist on their own interpretation of moral principles, rather educators who help adolescents to develop