Lesson 4

THE VALUE OF VALUES EDUCATION

An Anecdote
We start this Lesson not with a definition of values education but with an anecdote from Chuang
Tzu and try to extract some rich philosophical insights:

Duke Hwan of Khi,

First in his dynasty,
Sat under his canopy
Reading his philosophy;
And Phien the wheelwright Was out in the yard Making a wheel.
Phiel laid aside
Hammer and chisel,
Climbed the steps,
And said to Duke Hwan:
"May I ask you, Lord,
What is this you are
Reading?”
The Duke said:
“The experts. The authorities.”
And Phien asked:
“Alive or dead?”
“Dead a long time.”
“Then,” said the wheelright,
“You are reading only
The dirt they left behind.”
Then the Duke replied
“What do you know about it?
You are only wheelwright.
You had better give me a good explanation
Or else you must die”
The wheelwright said:
“Let us look at the affair
From my point of view.
When I make a wheels
If I go easy, they fall apart,
If am too rough, they do not fit
If I am neither too easy nor too violent
They come out right. The work is what
I want to be.
You cannot put this into words
You just have to know how it is
I cannot extn tell my son exactly how it is done,
And my own son cannot learn it from me,
So here I am, seventy years old,
Still making, wheels!
The men of old
Took all they really knew
With them to the gravee
And so, Lord, uhat you are reading there
Is only the dirt they left behind them."

Perenniallv, we long associated values education with the wisdom of Duke Hwan reading the
ancient thinkers, of teachers in the academe enumerating who said this and that and beginning each
discussion with a dogmatic definition of terms, and of professors '*ho exhibit the professorial
syndrome. We have forgotten that the first great philosophers, Socrates of the West and Confucius of
the East never wrote a book nor pretended to know everything. Instead, they went ou t of their
cloistered shells, interacting with people in the market and in the streets and learning from those who
do not know. We shall treat of values not from the pedestal but from the level of ordinary man and from
individuals in all occupational fields because everyone has a responsibility t0%ard self and to others.

Man as a Value-Carrier

The crux of all education is values education.

Are you a civil servant? Specifically, a bureau chief, a unit head, a professor, a student? Then,
whether you are aware of it or not' whether you deny it, or relinquish your duty, you are a value carrier
and a value-sharer. Whatever values you carry and share with your clients and co-workers depend on
your individual beliefs, convictions, your philosophy of life and world-view—your weltanschauung,
and your attitude towards reality—your weltanszicht
If one works in the DENR, for instance, his choice of reading materials, his treatment of the
environment, his relationship with his fellows, will inevitably reflect his weltanschauung and his
weltanszicht. Is the government worker an orthodox believer, a conservative, a radical, an off-beat
character, an activist, apolitical, political, moral, immoral, a charismatic amoral, non-political or
sharply political? A die-hard Marxist, a fundamentalist, a "Born-Again," an opportunist? An
intriguer? An impostor? A gross materialist? A retiring monk? An incurable romantic isolated on
stratosphere 12? A rabid nationalist whose myopic eyesight does not extend beyond Illana Bay? A
sterile government methodologist and process-oriented? An entertainer who refuses to work and
teach and just keeps on recycling old jokes?
We could go on and on, but whatever kind or style of philosophy the government worker
believes in and carries with him and lives by, such philosophy is the non-cashable, non-transferrable
goods he brings to his office. All education is values education.
Today, we seem to be so concerned with development without due respect to our values and value-
system. According to Senator Leticia Ramos-Shahani, what the Filipinos need is national discipline.
To build the country must be based on values and ethics. We do not have individual and external
discipline because we do not have a soul as a nation. We are disunited. We lack discipline and we
are too personalistic.
On the other hand, Randy David, a famous thinker, said that ''the tragedy is we are born into a
culture we do not simply make. Whatever we get is second-hand. In modern Philippine
society it is a culture of meanness because of tainted glasses and loud stereos. The Filipino has
become a faceless man behind a tainted glass."
Fr. Ruben Villote thinks that the Filipinos loves talking—in radio, in print, in TV, in
Congress, in the Cabinet, in the market. The result is we are drowned with words. We lost trust in
words.
Then we start to distrust each other and communication bogs down. The solution is to
rediscover silence, but we do not seem to have time for it. We lose track of ourselves. We suffer not
only from environmental pollution but from noise pollution as well. We do not reflect anymore. We
think but we do not reflect.
We need silence because we need to face our problems, insecurities, and doubts. We are afraid to
face the chaos in us, so we end up talking and talking. We are running away from ourselves. We
do not see the value of transformation or self-emptying just like the story of Nan-in, a Japanese
Zen master and a Filipino Zen disciple who kept clear identity on complaining about the pouring
of tea to derive from the lack of clear identity of a nation.

The Filipino js the process of synthesizing himself as a person, of defining his cultural
identity. Dr, Chua of the CMU has stated. in one ACAP convention , that “the Filipino has no has
no culture of his own.”
 We need to re-direct ourselves and to do this we need to do analysis of VALUES and
VALUES EDUCATION because values are the bottleneck of development. Hopefully, this
“banana republic with its sagging economy,” to use the words of Dr. Nagasura Madale of MSU,
can still hope to resurrect from its errors. What we need is a value-oriented nation and leaders.
We have to forget momentarily that we are Muslims, Christians government workers.

WHAT IS A VALUE?
7
Values are the truths upon •e base our obJc«ave mora. standards. A full value if somdhung
freely chosen from after thoughtful consjderatjon of the consequences of each
It us acted upon repeatedly so as to b«ome a pattern of life. It IS found to gjve direction and
meaning to life such a uay that it enhances groulh of the total person, and It is cherished and
publicly affirmed to others. The emphasis in this defimuon comprises eight cnteru uhjch can be
used to assess uhether a belief, attitude, or the like is truly a value

Value Cliteria

First Criterion: A Value Must Be Chosen Freely.

A full value is a guide, a norm, a principle by which a person lives, ne values that a person
chooses freely are the ones that he or she will internalize, cherishh, and allow to guide his or her
life. There is no such thing as imposed value.

Second Criterion: A Value Must Be Chosen from Alternatives.

That a value must be chosen from altenatives follows from the first criterion that a
value must be chosen freely. If there are no altenatives, there is no freedom of choice.

Third Criterion: A Value Must Be Chosen After Considering the Consequences.

More precisely, a value must be freely chosen after careful study of the consequences of each
alternative. That is, the consequences must be known. If a person does not realize the

consequences of a particular alternative, he or she does not know what is going to happen; he or she
has, therefore, not freely chosen that consequence. Only after the foreseeable alternatives or
options open to him or her are fully and clearly understood is a person able to make a free and
intelligent choice.
Many items, of course, like the consequences of one's choices cannot be known in advance. This
fact does not necessarily mean that a free choice has not been made; it does mean, however, that
once the consequences are understood the person must reevaluate his or her choice in the light
ofthe new information.

Fourth Criterion: A Value Must Be Performede

A value is acted upon, performed, carried out: it influences a person's behavior in some way. Thus,
what a person does reflects his or her values.

Fifth Criterion: A Value Becomes a Pattern of Life.

Values are acted on repeatedly and become life patterns. And the stronger the value, the more
it influences one's life. A value that becomes a pattern of life manifests itself in all aspects of one's
 existence in one's friends, in one's career, in one's use of time, in one's relationship to others, in
one's decision-making, etc. In brief, a value tends to permeate and influence all aspects of one's
life.
Sixth Criterion: A Value is Cherished,
A value is something a person feels positive about; he or she prizes it, cherishes it, respects it,
rejoices in it, and celebrates it. As the individual grows toward full development of his or her values,
he or she derives increasingly greater contentment, satisfaction, fulfillment, and joy from the act of
choosing his or her own destiny.

Seventh Criterion: A Value is Publicly Affirmed,

This is a criterion directly related to the preceding criterion that a value is cherished. When we have
good news, we like to share it. When we discover a value that is freely chosen, the consequences of
which we know, and that makes us happy, we want to tell others about it. In fact, if the value is a full
value, we may even crusade for it.

Eighth Criterion: A Value Enhances the Person's Total Grown

If a value has been affirmed as a full value by having met the seven preceding criteria, it follows
as a matter of course that the value wi contribute to and enhance the person's total growth toward the
goal and ideals that he or she has chosen for himself or herself
When we become better persons, we become better workers. A bad person can never become a
good lawyer or doctor.

Value Indicators
A value indicator is an expression that points toward a value but doe.s not necessarily fulfill all
eight criteria of the process of valuing Our full values grow out of and develop from these value
indicators.
Some of the more important value indicators are goals, purposes, aspirations, attitudes, interests,
feelings, beliefs, convictions, activities, worries, problems, daydreams, use of time, use of money, use
of energy, etc. The relevance of these value indicators is that they help us to discover the values we are
developing.

Here is a useful exercise. It is known as the values grid.

A Values Grid

Instructions:

Think about your personal values now and fill out the grid, placing the value on the left and
checking off only the boxes you feel are true in your life. For example, if the value is patience, ask
yourself the following questions:
J) Did I choose this freely?
2) Did I consider other alternatives?
3) Do I fully understand the consequences?
4) Do I perform this value?
5) Is patience a pattem in my life?
6) Do J cherish it? Is it important to me?
7) Do other know that I am patient? Do I display it publicly 0 8) Does this bejp me to crow?
For every One of these questions to which you can answer yes, check off the corresponding
box. If all eight boxes are checked, know the value is a full value, If only a few are checked, (hat
it is a value indicator. The purpose of this grid is to help us see some areas of growth in our lives.
 Phenomenological Knowledge of Values
Max Scheler (1874-1928), a leading moral philosopher in value-ethics, maintains that
there are two ways of knowing values.
(l) -Experiential knowledge and

(2) Conceptual knowledge.

Essential Characteristics of Value-Experience

Values possess the following characteristics:
(J) Values are first "felt" before they are thought of.

(2) Values are independent of the "subject," "carrier",

independent of social, historical, cultural, and contingent factors or circumstances.

(3) Values are independent of subjective emotional states.
(4) One can be aware of a v@lue without making it the "purpose" of his will.
Objective Criteria for the Scale of Values
(l) Duration. This is the ability ofa value to endure in time. "Love forever' is higher than "love
from moment from moment."
(2) Extension or Shareabi/ity. This is the quality of a value that can be shared by many persons
without disintegrating. An act of charity is higher than an act of justice.
(3) Independence. The higher value is never a foundation for the lower value.
(4) Depth of Satisfaction. The m.ore profound the value-experience, the higher the value.
Fulfillment as a person is higher than physical or material success.

The Scale of Values

(l) Sensible values
(2) Life values
(3) Cultural values
(4) Religious values

It is good for us to be aware of what our values are the core of who we are, The reasons we
do, or not do, certain things often depend on our values. Values of the state and individual level
are treated as cultural capital and they also regulate action and interaction.

What is the Essence of Values Education?

Values have a social function: commonly held values unite families, tribes, societies, and
nations. They are essential to the democratic way of life which puts a high premium on freedom
and the rule of law. The thrust on values education finds its strong support in the Philippine
Constitution of 1987 in its vision of "a just and humane society," which calls for a shared culture
and commonly held values such as truth, justice, freedom, love, equality, and peace."

What Values Education is not:

—It is not prescriptive; values cannot be imposed.
2. It is not exhaustive; it does not purport to be a complete list of human values.
 3. It makes no statement on regional, local, and institutional needs and priorities.
What it is:
l. It is descriptive: it is an attempt at an orderly description of a desirable value system on the
basis of an understanding of the human person.
2. It is conceptual: it lists ideals which have to be internalized in the education process.
3. It is intended to be applicable in varying degrees to all three levels of the educational
system.
4. It is broad and flexible enough for adaptation to specific contexts.

Its Foundations
Values education is founded on a sound philosophy of the human person with all its
philosophical ramifications and implications. The supreme and overarching value that characterizes
education is HUMAN DIGNITY.
A. Values Education means:
1. Academic formation—human intellect (to know the truth)
2. Personal formation-—human will (to choose the good)
The wisdom of the intellect makes a sage; the wisdom of the will makes a saint.

ACTIVITY # 2
Name: ___________________ Course: _________

A. What is Value? (10 points)

B. Enumerate the Criteria of value and define each

according to your understanding. (5 pts. each)

___________________________________________
Output must be done through WPS and send it to my
gmail account.
ethanjill28@gmail.com

Submit your activity on or before 5:00 pm.