TIME TO USHER IN VALUES EDUCATION

David L. Shimray

                                                                                                            M.A. Ch. Edn. (USA)

                                                                                                            M.A. Philosophy (USA)

            In view of the present chaos in the metro cities in India under the caption of “Racism,” I would like to share my observation in regard to the attitudes we are experiencing from the mainland Indians. As I have been roaming around in the metro cities of India for the last 8 years, I find that Indians are not as bad as we think. It is quite natural that if we behave in an unruly and indecent way, and don’t give up our village style of living, then we face an equal and opposite reaction. When we move around in a decent way with polished language, we get a lot of respects from them. When I go to decent places, for instance, 5 stars or 7 stars Hotels, they see me as a foreigner; it does not matter from which country they thought I came from. Even after introducing them that I am from the Northeast India and telling them what I am there for, they don’t change their attitudes. As per my experience, most of the time we encounter racial attitudes from only uneducated group of people like the grocery shop keepers, pan walas, chai walas, and may be sometimes by the road side hoodlums etc. So, education and a well polished manner with a good understanding of ethical codes of the people we live alongside are very important. And this can be learned only from a formal education with a special emphasis on the ethics. We remember the phrase, “Be a Roman when you are in Rome.” If we don’t know how a Roman behaves, how would I act as a Roman or at least in a way acceptable to the Romans?

            With this view in mind I decided to introduce briefly what is required in the preparation of our youngsters for their lives through this essay entitled, “Time to usher in values education.” Values education is also synonymous to “Quality education” in principle. First of all, I will begin with the assertion that education is a must in the lives of all human beings as it plays a fundamental role in human, economic, and moral developments. Education is the process of imparting knowledge to the learners. The learners gather and accumulate knowledge through education and this knowledge becomes the master of all their activities in their futures. Only a good knowledge can guide a man to act good individually, socially, and corporately. Humans are social beings and so it requires everyone’s contribution for the welfare of its society. A man with a bad knowledge can contribute only chaos and disorder to the society, and a man without knowledge can contribute only unnecessary crowd. The foundation of a child to grow up into a man with good knowledge is laid in the child’s education.

            It should be noted that there are three principles in education, namely, Philosophy (applied philosophy), Curriculum and Methodology. Philosophy of education is the part that determines the goal of the education. Curriculum is the part that defines the areas or fields of studies that will induce the learner to achieve the desired goal of the education. Some of the prominent Philosophies of education are, Pragmatism (in America), Perennialism (India and many other countries), Christian (in schools all over the world managed by Christian bodies), and Secular Humanist education (being propounded). Education however is always opened to new approaches. Therefore, in the contemporary world there are many other competing philosophies of education, which can be assigned mainly in two categories, namely Secular education and Religious educations. Secular education is the education that has nothing to do with gods or sometimes against gods and their attributes whereas, religious education is the education whose focus is god, its teachings and fulfillment of its wills. The methodology is the way to teach the subject matter effectively. The three most prominent methods are, Didactic method, Socratic Method, and Pragmatic method. Any one of these methods can be chosen depending on one’s epistemological orientation and suitability for the subjects being taught.

            Education is a holistic approach of changing the learners, so it intends to bring about a change in the learners’ physical, intellectual, and moral (ethical) states. The physical aspect of education concerns with the physical well being of the learners, environmental awareness from the perspective of hygiene, co-curricular activities such as games and sports, exercises, etc. In philosophy there is a branch called Axiology. Ethics and Aesthetics come under this branch. Aesthetics is the study or a discourse to understand the nature of arts and beauty. It is from this perspective that in the modern educational curricula, arts such as singing, dancing, carpentry, needle works, and cooking etc. are included. In addition to these, the art of beautification such as fashion designing, facial make ups, hair styling, etc. should also be added as general studies. Talking from the perspective of northeast India, each state has its own traditional dances and songs to show the whole world its unique beauties. Similarly, it has so many good looking youngsters who, with a little make up here and there could make a significant difference in their looks, which is a good way to present oneself to others about the well being of one’s inner self. It also boosts the self esteem of the individual.  Learning other nations’ arts should also be encouraged. A sound physical condition is always inducive to a sound mind. Many students and parents have not paid any attention to these arts and the consequence is what we are today, a socially low status community. We must at any cost encourage our youngsters to learn these arts. When a person learns perfectly one of these arts, one can make a living out of this whereby making the society economically more viable and independent.

The intellectual aspect of education consists of mainly training the brain (intellect) through rigorous mental exercises and motor skills to cope up with any situations in the lives of the learners. In short, the objective of education is teaching “to learn how to learn new things,” rather than learning only what is being taught. This can be achieved by exposing the learners to different kinds of problems in science, mathematics, social sciences, rhetoric, logics, etc. and giving them sufficient efforts to analyze them for concrete solutions. John Locke said, “The mind of a newborn is tabula rasa (blank slate).”   But “humans are rational beings” by nature. Therefore, it also requires that the minds of the learner should be fed with enough facts and figures or empirical data, to fill the minds so that the minds can draw a more rational conclusions, views, and concepts about the things and their relationship to the world they live in. The subject matters, which are selected from the curriculum and compiled in the form of text books is called the Syllabus (syllabi, plural). The text books are compiled not only to contain the desired empirical data but also designed in such a way as to let the learners analyze them and draw rational views and concepts about them. This way a well designed text books help the learners to stretch or flex their minds. Consequently, the minds become more and more proficient to handle new problems and challenges that come along the ways of their lives.

 Human beings, though rational, are morally insolent. Everyone from both religious and nonreligious persuasions knows it. Hence the need for correction, if not eradication, of this moral insolence is felt everywhere. Religious moral principles and intellectual trainings used to go hand in hand till the medieval periods mostly under the influence of the Romans’ Humanitas. It was during the Renaissance period when religious matters and secular matters began to part their ways as they thought the classical literature was more effective in making a man perfect. It continued all the way through the Modern period. Now, realizing the incompleteness of life without the creators’ will, reintroduction of ethics is seen as indispensable in education. And educational institutions and the field of studies are perceived as the best tool to do so. Therefore, education with special emphasis on moral development is being campaigned. Many people still don’t know properly the concept of “values education.” It is often confused with good infrastructure, strict administration, and the institutions’ good results in the public examinations. As a matter of fact, values education is the education that emphasizes the ethical issues in its curriculum. Ethical knowledge means the knowledge of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ or the knowledge of ‘right’ and ‘wrong.’ The word ‘ethics’ comes from the Greek word ethos, which means “CHARACTER.” In today’s world, ethics and morality are interchangeably used more narrowly to mean the moral principles of a particular tradition, group or individual. In order to understand the issue of morality, it is important to briefly introduce the meaning of ethics.

Some of the definitions of ethics propounded by different groups of ethicists are;

(i) the discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation

(ii) a theory or system of moral

(iii) the principles of conduct governing an individual or a group

            (iv) a consciousness of moral importance

The term ethics is broadly divided into two categories; i. Normative and ii. Descriptive

(i)                 Normative ethics is the study of ethical action. It is the branch of philosophical ethics that investigates the set of questions that arise when considering how one ought to act, morally speaking. It also examines standards for the rightness and wrongness of actions. Normative ethics is also called the Prescriptive ethics as it holds a certain principle of right or wrong and prescribes to act in that way.

(ii)               Descriptive, is an empirical investigation of people's moral beliefs. To put it another way, descriptive ethics would be concerned with determining what proportion of people believe that killing is always wrong.

These two categories are further subdivided into many more sub-categories using philosophical jargons depending mostly on the focus of the studies and assertions.

Paul and Elder define ethics as "a set of concepts and principles that guide us in determining what behavior helps or harms sentient creatures.” But the question here again is, who authorizes the “Principles and concepts?” and why should we follow them? The generation today’s youngsters live is termed by the Americans as the “SEZ WHO?” generation The reason is, when a senior (parents, elders, teachers etc) asks a junior to do something or not to do something, the junior’s response is “Says who?” The junior will not be satisfied if they are told “Because I said so.” Many rules, principles, concepts, etc. may be prescribed to a person, but as long as the person prescribing and the person to whom they are prescribed don’t have a common authority, it is doubtful that many people will respect the given set of rules, principles and the concepts. In the Bible, the authority is God. He is our Creator, Provider, Sustainer, you name it! And so the Christians’ allegiance to their God and living according to its ethical set is justified. The kind of ethics without a reference to any God or gods is known as the SECULAR ETHICS, and Ethics derived from the ultimate authority, i.e. God or gods, are called RELIGIOUS ETHICS. (From the author’s A Brief Discourse on Secular Ethics In the light of Biblical Ethics).

In an attempt to inculcate normative ethics, Indian educationists include “Moral Science” as a subject in their syllabi. But since there are many religions in India, a full fledged ethical standard cannot be established, and as result it ended up with just introduction of some great men and some gods, which different religious groups worship. However, we cannot blame them as we know that with so many different sets of ethics, justice cannot be done for all because, although many issues of the different sets overlap each other, at least one issue is different and it makes all the sets different. For example, the ten commandments of the Bible do not have any problem with other religious persuasions and similarly the unquestionable dictum “To help the poor without any reservation” of the Muslims, or the Hindus’ teaching of “Unselfish actions (karma)” do not have any problem with the Christians. Secular ethicists too have no problem with all these issues as long as they are not told that our God wants us to do these. Only when it comes to the question of the author, the whole thing crumbles and followers take stance that are poles apart. Moral consciences and acting according to them does not happen by only knowing what they mean, but it is giving allegiance to the author and living in obedience.

Values, which are the sets of ethical codes and conducts, are meaningful only if the authority that prescribes them is acknowledged along with them. For this reason the different ethical codes and conducts prescribed by the different religious groups are the best and a complete one. However, all the different religions are exclusive in themselves; therefore their sets of ethical codes and conducts are exclusive in themselves too. In this situation, we have no choice but to choose one set for our education. The most viable criteria for choosing this should be based on the maximum freedom for humanity granted in the ethical set. We know some religions have disgusting and dehumanizing elements in it. Such a set should be ruled out. Secular humanistic way of introducing its ethics sounds good but, as argued above, it cannot hold water as it goes overboard with too much freedom and its tendency to focus too much on the utilitarian perspective.

Putting humans in the highest position with the maximum freedom of humanity is found in the biblical description of man in Psalms. It says, “What is mankind that you are mindful of them, human being that you care for them. You have made them a little lower than Angels and crowned them with glory and honor. You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet.  All flocks and herds, and the animals of the wild, the birds in the sky and the fish in the sea, all that swims in the paths of the seas. (Ps 8;4-8). It means that we are to govern ourselves; we are to govern the animal kingdom, we are to govern the plant kingdom, we are to govern the marine kingdom, and we are to govern the celestial kingdom. The creator gives this authority to human by making him an intellect and rational being just like Him (Gen. 1:26). This is evidenced from what He said through the mouth of Isaiah in 1:18 “Come let us reason together.” He knows, He and man can beat out the differences and the misunderstandings between Him and His most valued creature and it also shows that He respects man’s autonomy, although he has His own way to deal with men who deviate from Him.

Luke 2:52 says, “Then Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man.” What this verse tells us is that, Jesus grew up in perfect physical condition, admirable intellect, and in good moral standing. What more can we expect in the growth of our children if they grow up in this manner? When David said in proverbs 9:8-12, “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of all knowledge,” it means that acknowledging the authority of the Creator God is the beginning of the understanding of everything about His creations, His will, and the relationship between all these. The Bible has strictly warned us that we must “Teach our children in the way they should grow and even when they are old they will not turn away from it” (Proverbs 22:6).  The “way” being referred to here is the way Jesus grew up as a human being. There is no other knowledge that can be taught in the classrooms besides the knowledge about the universe and things within it and their relationships with one another, and to the Creator.

The goal of introduction of secular values in education finally boils down to achieving mainly a peaceful co-existence of the societies by being considerate to one another. Nothing more than that! As a matter of fact, Christian education with God’s prescription of ethical codes and conducts has a much more important purpose than this. Apart from making each learner a perfect person, it also decides the fate of the person’s life here and after. Even for achieving simply the purpose of educational goals desired by all kinds of educationists, Christian values with “Love of God” and “Love of one’s neighbor” (Matt. 22:38-40, Deut. 6:4-9) far surpasses all other ethical sets intended to be prescribed for inclusion in the educational goals. Where there is love, there is nothing that cannot be “Reasoned together” and be forgiven of each other for any wrong things done. In our everyday lives whether in the work places, on the streets, at homes, in public places, we are always governed by different ethical codes of conducts, which we have to oblige. While obliging them we only have to remember that we do it to the glory of the Kingdom! (And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him (Colossian 3:17, I Cor. 10:31).

Due to limitation of time and space I have to conclude this essay here rather abruptly. However, in conclusion I will assert that the goal of values education for us Christians should be changing and making each learner Christlike, full of intelligence, physically and morally sound. To achieve this, cognitive moral education imparted in the classrooms based on the text books, and biblical texts extracted randomly from the Bible alone is not sufficient. Institutions should take up a lot more responsibilities. The institutions must be wise enough to select teachers and should not compromise with any biblical principles. Although conducting one or two chapel classes in a week is necessary, it is not enough to usher in the desired goal of Christian values education. Learners have to live out the biblical values in their lives and this can happen only if the learners are related to the Provider personally. One of the Christian institutions’ roles is to help the learners relate to God through Jesus Christ. Therefore, institutions must have full time ministry in the campus led by a qualified minister and provide expert pastoral and clinical counselors to handle cases of moral insolence in the campus. Voluntary intercessory prayer teams, if necessary paid and employed, must be arranged to pray for the students and the teachers throughout the days from the beginning of classes till the end. It may sound weird but we should not undermine the power of prayers.