Schools & colleges should take up ‘value education’ seriously

Learning of values starts right at home from being a child. Values are taught to us, and as children we learn them, and after growing as adults we forget or ignore them. One of the initiatives taken up by education board in India is to introduce, ‘Value Education’ as a subject in schools and colleges.

The idea here is to reinitiate the values in adults or the grown-ups. This initiative is quite commendable, but to what extent is it being righteously implemented? To a very great extent this initiative is not executed in its true spirit.

As a student, I was never allowed to think beyond or out of the box in numerous situations and I see the situation is still same. The fault is with all of us. There are teachers/ lecturers who are qualified to be in academics in terms of a certificate, but no potential to shape a child, show a path or encourage the child’s abilities.

On the other hand, there is a huge number of population in the country who are willing to teach with right potential and teaching methods, who are left behind in the name of a

Often school/ college managements give away value education subject to teachers who are already dealing with subjects like math, science, and whatnot. Here lies the core problem which is failure of a great initiative. If the delivery is not done rightly, how can we expect commendable results? We cannot. Dealing with value education requires separate expertise, experience and global knowledge of different value systems, societal structures and case studies.

Most teachers/ lecturers who deal with value education are not technically trained to take up the subject. Often, they fail to clear the doubts raised by students. The idea here is to highlight the situation and not to blame anyone. Blame game will never allow us to think of solutions.Looking at the existing problem in multiple dimensions will possibly allow us all to reach a solution.

Value education focuses on building moral values, imbibing cultural knowledge, helps in developing an understanding of societal norms, functionality of society and so on. It surely is a vast area to explore and process the information.

I often watch animated films. As a child I grew up watching a lot of them. Over the time, I realised that these animated films are a hub for learning, only if one knows how to learn values and morals from them.

All it takes is an eye to identify and a functioning mind to process it. The ultimate goal of value education is to develop a healthy mind to shape a social being for a better tomorrow. If there are films focusing on ‘nirvana’, ‘peace’ and ‘morals’ which are catering to the subjective goals, why not re-design the curriculum of value education?

Watching a movie like ‘Kung-Fu-Panda’ with an expert/ facilitator in a class is much impactful than a lengthy lecture on importance of peace and ways to achieve it, which again no one understands, as it is not being delivered rightly.

This movie specifically focuses on importance of hard-work, time management and its importance, how to make friends and maintain healthy relationships with others, and also highlights about peace, its importance and ways to find it. How educating and enriching would it be if a class watches a movie of this kind with an expert by having multiple discussionssimultaneously at regular intervals.

Kung-Fu-Panda is just an example taken here. Like-wise, there are numerous films catering to the subjective needs and development of a child, or an adult. Star Wars, Star Trek, Finding Nemo, The Gruffalo, and the list is never ending. Elsewhere in the world, there are courses on understanding religion via films,analysing religious texts in contrast to films. Implementing a similar modal in imbibing values will surely bring a difference.
In terms of developing or building a value structure in the minds of people, the role of their family is immense.

As we all know, ‘Learning beings at home’, and to see any change, there should be a collective contribution from everyone. When enough amount of parental attention, care, and love is not shown to a child, the child will then go out in search of the same. This is one of the biggest problem currently we are dealing with. This is one of the primary cause for miss happenings in the society.

Shaping of behaviour from a young age is quite crucial and if it is not rightly done, there begins the problem, which in deed will grow into a disaster later. Value education as a subject seems very petty to many out there, but if we deeply analyse the happenings around us, and also look at the growing children, it strongly indicates that, there is a problem and we ourselves should collectively address it, willingly. Values are to be imbibed, not memorised.

By Kalyan Raygalla (The writer is a facilitator at St Marys College)