Values Education for High School Students

I had been teaching High School from 1987 to 1994 in Suarez High School; at that time, the student yearly population was seven hundred. I was hired by the DECS (Department of Education Culture and Spors) to teach Economics since this is my major in my College Degree; along with Economics I was also teaching Algebra, Geometry and Trigonometry; these are my minor subjects.

Then I proceeded in my Master Studies in Education and I was sent to several in-service training with various subjects; all these led to my becoming a versatile Secondary (High) School Teacher.

I was appointed as a regular delegate to the government's one-month in-service training workshops every summer from 1988 until I left the school in 1994. The yearly training was called SEDP (Secondary Education Development Program) of the government.

Among the subjects I took were, Librarianship, Physical Education, Music, and Values Education. My favorite is Values Education and this was where I focused my specialization. Because of these training I became the first school librarian and then the Department Head for Values Education.

In one of my SEDP training I was awarded the certificate of "Parental Responsibility" in Values Education.

When I was teaching high school, I did not just concentrate in the academic area. My degree in Economics was actually not for High School students, it was a degree for application in business and if taught in school should be in College. My minors in Mathematics are also supposedly for College and because of this misplaced job, I went on to study Professional Education and Master in Education.

I learned to love my students so that I also looked into each of them as a "soul", an individual with personal needs, desires, troubles, to mention a few. It is for these reasons that I desired not only to teach the academic but also the total person...e.g., the mind, the body, the heart as evidenced by my study in Physical Education, Music, and Values Education.

What is Values Education?

First of all, Values Education is a spontaneous and dynamic subject that directly affects the personal life of the learner.

Values Education as a subject has three basic objectives, namely;

1. To help students become aware of his nature and personal values as a complete human; to help him discover his personal worth and help him develop his human potential,

2. To help students become a useful and productive member of the community and a productive citizen who contributes to the progress of his country, rather than a liability, a parasite, or a dependent mendicant.

3 To help students understand himself as a multi-dimensional being. He is the sum of physical, intellectual, social, moral, and spiritual being.

Values Education has a framework which is geared towards translating values from the abstract into practical use. As a part of the school curriculum, Values Education is by itself a process and an integral part of all the academic subjects which students take in high school. Values formation can happen in the process of interaction between students and teachers as they are dealing with the routine involved in learning.

In the values formation process students will be able to construct their own meaning and develop skills needed for whaetever they value in life in the personal level.

At the time Values Education as a subject was introduced in high school as initiated by the DECS through SEDP training, I was among the pioneering delegate. Most teachers in those training, from Values l through lV were complaining because they were confused on how it was going to be taught. The lesson planning was far-fetched, very different from all the existing subjects.

The following are the four levels in Values Education;

1. Values Education l - Who Am I

2. Values Education ll - Who are My Neighbors

3. Values Education lll - My Physical Environment and Government

4. Values Education lV- The Multi-Dimensional Me, Spirituality

Values Education l - Who Am I?

This is the subject for first year high school students. The teacher "inculcates", model or simulate the objective of his lessons where the students will be encouraged to voice out and act his own ideas on how he sees himself as a person. Role playing is the most effective method to bring out the ability of students in a given situation.

The student as human is both the subject and object of education: he is the center of the curriculum.

Values Education ll - Who are My Neighbors

This is for second year high school students. The student, like other humans, does not live in isolation. He belongs to a family, a community, an institution, a society of people of the same basic physical, intellectual, moral and spiritual components as he has.

Here the students learn the values of respect to others and to share his unique talents and abilities for those who need them.

Values Education lll - My Physical Environment and Government

This is for third year highs school students. In this level, the students learn the value of acknowledging and developing his skills, talents, abilities and potentials so that he can be a useful and productive citizen of the country. He will learn the value of contributing to the growth, honor and stability of his culture and government. He learns the value of using both human and non-human resources to help build structures and institutions to attain a just and humane society.

Values Education lV -

This is the highest form of Values Education for fourth year or graduating high school students.

Here the students will learn and acknowledge his connection to the Great Intelligence that governs everything in nature. He will learn the values of abiding with the universal laws in all of his dealings in life. This is a highly philosophical study that is applicable to the personal life of the students. This is not religion and also not necessarily godliness, it's more on the spiritual strength within each of us that we can lean on when everything else fails.

To sum it all; In my more than twenty years of teaching from high school to college, I always integrate Values Education in my teaching, whether it's an English Speech Class, Logic, Philosophy, Economics, Political Science, among others. The basic is I love my students, for me they are souls, and my students love me...love begets love...that's the highest Values Education.