The Values in Action Schools Project - What's taking so long?

According to the October 2010 Final Report linked and discussed below, the Australian Federal Government has "made a concerted effort to fund and foster a range of activities to support schools in developing explicit, informed, systematic and effective approaches to values education in all areas of school policy and classroom practice".  Since 2002.  Are we there yet?  And if not, what's taking so long?

In 2008, Australian Education Ministers formally unveiled a new National Declaration on their aims for the next decade and beyond,  the Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians.  It is summarised at the beginning of the Values in Action School Project (VASP) Final report below, and states:

　Education equips young people with the knowledge, understanding, skills and values to take advantage of opportunity and to face the challenges of this [global] era with confidence.As well as knowledge and skills, a school’s legacy to young people should include national values of democracy, equity and justice, and participation in Australia’s civic life.…[students need to develop] personal values and attributes such as honesty, resilience, respect and empathy for others [which help them] establish and maintain healthy and satisfying lives. Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians (MCEETYA 2008)

Given (firstly) basic "common sense", the results of the VASP, and the demonstrated relevance and connectedness to the stated aims of the Federal Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR), I am deeply concerned with the brouhaha made over the introduction of Special Ethics Education classes in NSW.  The fact that we don't already have a national, compulsory "Civics/Ethics/Values" program at both primary and secondary level exemplifies the negative impact of State/Federal power struggles and of conflicting stakeholder agendas throughout the education sector.  I can only hope that we are "nearly there" and that the Special Ethics Education curriculum introduced in NSW will serve to hasten the rollout of a national program based on the findings of the Values Education for Australian Schooling Projects.  I look forward to teaching in an environment where values education is deeply embedded in educational policy and practice, in addition to being explicity taught as part of the curriculum.

Edited by Barbara Vaughan.  Published in October 2010 by Education Services Australia Ltd as an Australian Federal Government Initiative, "Giving Voice to the Impact of Values Education" is the Final Report of the "Values in Action Schools Project".  Please click on the cover image above to view the PDF of the 141 page report.

Publication Details:

Published by Education Services Australia Ltd

PO Box 177 Carlton South Vic 3053 Australia

Tel: (03) 9207 9600

Fax: (03) 9910 9800

Email: info@esa.edu.au

Website: www.esa.edu.au

Review and summary of major aims and findings:

The Values Education project is vast in scope and size, and there is much of interest discussed in the report.  I have endeavoured to select the 'meatiest nuggets' of most relevance to this blog project, describing how explicit training in values/philosophical ethics can affect children (and their teachers, parents and the community) in positive ways.  For anyone interested in this topic, I can recommend that you read the ten-page Executive Summary of the project in its entirety.

The Values in Action Schools Project (VASP) was designed as a school-based extension of an ongoing investigation into values education in Australia.  More details about the preceding stages and the aims of the project as a whole can be found by accessing the Values Education website (also listed in the left sidebar).  Schools participating in the study were located in a variety of locations, rural, urban and remote, and included both primary and secondary schools. 

Aims of the VASP:

• To explore links between values education and student wellbeing.
• To focus on curriculum and student centred learning approaches to values education.
• To determine methods of increasing teacher professional learning and parent engagement.
• To distill the most important, valuable and critical aspects of values education as determined by the subject schools, from teachers, students and parents.
• To collate and disseminate this information to the broader educational community.

Findings of the VASP:

The project data was reduced by a series of stepwise reviews to five key 'impacts' through a process of multiple review.  These were:

1.  Values Consciousness

Through explicit teaching of values, students, teachers and parents became more aware of their meaning and power.  This increased awareness resulted in demonstrated capacity to think critically and display ethical and social competence.

2.  Wellbeing

Values education improved student wellbeing.  This is described as critical, as research has indicated a decline in social and emotional wellbeing between primary and secondary school.  Through a process of thinking about and acting on values, students described an improvement in self-worth, empathy and responsible personal behaviour.  Findings suggest that "at risk", marginalised and disadvantaged students were benefiting most from the 'self-discovery' process.  There was also evidence that explicit values education increased student's understanding of the impact of their own actions on the wellbeing of others.

3.  Agency

"Agency" refers to the capacity of individuals to act independently and to make choices and act on them.  Strengthened student agency was an evidenced finding from the VASP, through explicit focus on ethical, intercultural and social issues.  The school environment as a 'community' was important in learning about the concept of common good - moral and ethical integrity help to develop social cohesion and solidarity.  Specific projects undertaken at the school level included community outreach and engagement with complex global issues in an "ethics of care".  Student involvement in real-life practical values exercises had benefits for both the wider community and for the students themselves, providing deeper experiential learning and internalisation of values.  For teachers, the process of designing and implementing these real-life experiences led to more positive and open relationships with students - deeper engagement in the "community of learning".

4.  Connectedness

The development of "Communities of Practice" (Wenger, 1998) was a demonstrated benefit of the VASP.  Many of the subject schools made positive and wide-ranging connections between teachers, students, parents and the wider community.  Specifically, improved, deeper relationships resulted in increased student engagement in learning, and improved parent engagement in their children's learning.  Teachers were able to develop new relationships with their students, each other and with parents and families.  These relationships were made possible by the shared goals and practices of values education, and varied opportunities for collaboration.  Parents were "grateful" for the opportunity to be involved with their child's values education, both at school and at home.  A "noticeable improvement in respectful behaviours" was an observed outcome.

5. Transformation

The outcomes of the VASP were determined by a method of systematic continual evaluation, survey and reflection, and principles of good practice identified from the earlier Project rounds.  Due to this process reflection, change and transformation were identified as major outcomes themselves.  Positive changes were observed in professional practice, personal attitude, behaviours, relationships and group dynamics.  These changes were experienced and observed by teachers, students and parents.  Teachers identified how children "can take on sophisticated concepts when they are explicitly taught".  Students described an evolution, becoming more mature and better able to make friends and get along with others.

Conclusions from the Project:

The first two rounds of the Values Education project supplied data and outcomes to inform the structure and determine the aims of the third project, VASP, reviewed here.  Because of this triple distillation, the final conclusions should be soundly valid, yet retain relevance because of the direct input from individual study participants.  These conclusions are that "values education for children can (positively) transform classrooms, relationships, school environments, teacher professional practice and parent's engagement in their children's schooling."  The project has "made a major contribution to our understanding of what good values education is, how it can be implemented and whats sorts of difference it can make for students, teachers and whole school communities"

To form a pictorial conclusion, Figure 1 from the VASP Final Report is reproduced here.  Please click on the image to view a larger version, or navigate to Page 11 of the Executive Summary.