First, let me congratulate you on your participation in such an elite and excellent program! There are thousands of teachers across the globe who would love to be a part of this effort and the fact that you have taken an active role in it, is an indication of your own dedication to excellence.I am very sorry that I am not going to be with you in person. However, Professor Morsches invited me to write to you and I am more than happy to do so. I am a native West Virginian, a child of the coal fields, and an ordained Christian pastor. I received my education at West Virginia Wesleyan College, Harvard University, Suffield University and attended the University of Zurich, the University of Basel, and Tubingen University in Germany. My doctoral dissertation was on “Axiological Psychology and the Effects it has on High Achieving Adolescents.” It is on this topic that I want to share a few words with you.In America, we have many students who find great difficulty in choosing their career paths. When I was at Harvard, our research showed that the average graduate of HU would change careers more than six times before they retired. Mind you, I am not saying change jobs. I mean entire career fields are switched more than six times. This means that there is a great deal of unhappiness even for Harvard graduates who have selected the wrong career path for themselves. My work dealt with trying to find out why so many were choosing so poorly.After studying the situation, it became patently clear that the vast majority of these students were selecting careers that had little or nothing to do with their own personal value system. They were either picking careers based upon the average annual salary they might glean from it, or selecting careers that merely fit their own skill-sets (for example, if a student was good in mathematics, they thought they should study engineering) but few ever took the time to look at their values and how those values matched a given career choice. Then, once in the career, they encountered the very difficult challenge of discovering that their own values contradicted a basic requirement of the profession.My dear wife made this mistake herself. She is truly brilliant (a genius if you can believe IQ tests) and excelled in school her whole life. She is also a natural speed reader with a photographic memory. Given these skills, she was advised that she should go to Law School and become an attorney. This she did. However, she is also a very kind, gentle woman who abhors conflict and who wants to help others who need assistance. In the American legal system, these values do not fit well. That’s why we call our lawyers, “sharks!” My wife is more a guppy than a shark. Consequently, she hated the practice of law and had to seek an alternative career path as a medical school professor who seeks to find physicians who want to serve in underserved areas of our state. Had she taken the time to do a values inventory early on in her education, she would have known that the legal profession was not a good fit for her.Values should drive careers, not the other way around. Therefore, the first thing a good teacher should do is help students clarify their own values. A student who values wealth, power and control may make an effective CEO, but he/she probably should not be a school teacher. A student who values love, peace and justice may make a wonderful pastor or cleric, but they will never be happy in accounting or business. Helping students explore their values choices is critically important and that is why what you are doing in this academy is so extremely vital.You are the ones who can help your students when they do values inventories. Helping them discern which values they wish to choose, the ones that will be the rudder of their own ship of life, will make a lasting and invaluable contribution to their future happiness. Each student must choose for himself or herself and no one should choose for them. However, supportive guidance in a non-directive fashion will empower students to select honestly and in keeping with their own God-given destiny. In the end, that should be the ultimate goal toward which all education should strive.
May God bless you in your important and exciting work!
Michael S. Curry, BA, MDiv., PhD.
Hello Dr. curry
ReplyDeleteI'd like to express my deepest gratitude for your support. we are trying our best and certainly your dong yours in helping us find out more about ourselves. I find your field of study quite interesting. It contributes more to a general understanding of worthy things in life and plays an important role in communities prosperity as a whole(if taken to action) . However, I'm a little bit confused about how to make students clarifying their own values. When to hinder some values from rising to the surface (if it's right to do so)? And when to stress other values?
From Dr. Curry:
ReplyDeletewww.livingmore.org/wp-content/lm-documents/ValuesList.pdf
He will respond tomorrow, inshalah :)
Values Inventories
ReplyDeleteThe list of values is comprehensive. It is designed to give students a wide range of possible choices for their own list.
Have the students imagine their “ideal person” who may be living, dead, or imagined. Have the students look at the list of values and pick the top four or five values that they believe the ideal person would embrace. Discuss how these values may play out in the ideal person’s life. For example, a student may think of Plato as his/her ideal person. Plato would likely value Truth, Wisdom, Community and Compassion. Discuss how each of these may impact his daily life. Try to see how they may contradict each other. For example: He may value Truth and Compassion but find that if he told the hard Truth all the time, then he may be under-cutting the value of Compassion.
Once the “ideal person” is discussed, then have the students think about themselves and the actual values that drive their day to day work. Encourage brutal honesty. For example, in reality, much of my day to day experience is driven by my appearance. It is not a very admirable quality but I’m just being honest. When I list four values that direct my “real self” I can then compare these with the “ideal person” I imagined earlier. Rarely are the two lists the same.
Now, the magic! Ask the students why the real person list does not match the ideal person list? No one is forcing them to choose values that are not ideal. They must exercise their real power of choice and use intentionality when selecting values. They have the power to choose the values they want to anchor and guide their lives. Therefore, they must choose carefully but with vigor.
Now, have the students re-visit the list of all the values and for them to choose the values they really want for themselves. Do not be judgmental. These are the students’ values and they may be very different from your values, but that is OK. We are all different to a point and everyone should be free to choose who and why they want to be. Some will do better than others, but all can undergo the exercise. Remember, values change as we age and mature. Some values may get substituted for others, but it is still our individual choice to make.
Once every student has narrowed their list to four values, discuss how this may give new direction to their career and academic directions. Have them print their top values and display them proudly in a place where they can see them every day. This will remind them to try and live-up to those values in both big and little ways each day.
www.livingmore.org/wp-content/lm-documents/ValuesList.pdf
curry
ReplyDeletefirst of all let me say that i'm heartily thankful to u for sharing us your rich experience.
i do believe in values and the essential role that they play in our lives.
and its very essential to be able as a teacher to clarify the students' own values; if we do so, we'll put our hands on the pain that our community suffers from and consequently we'll put community on the right track.
BUT the question is how could we as teachers do so?
once i asked my students to tell me about their ambitions, goals, future plans; i was shocked, they didn't know, they gave me no real answers.i know that there are exceptions but
as a teacher i really want to recreat their understanding for themselves and their values in which i believe i will and wanna be a part of reshaping the generation for the best
again and agian, HOW is the question.
thank u
I think if you look at the post above yours it explains how to use the materials on the website: www.livingmore.org/wp-content/lm-documents/ValuesList.pdf
ReplyDeleteThis should help you get started, let me know if you have any problems. :)
Thanks Dr. Curry for the nice topic .In fact, we all ask our students " What would you like to be in the future ? Why ? " I think the answers of WHY best indicate the values our students have as they are still young .For example , some of those answers may be " Because I like helping people for DOCTOR or NURSE " or " I want to defend my country for SOLDIER or PILOT " ...etc .However , those answers usually change as our students grow up because their attitudes towards life change .For example , most of them start to ask themselves : What is the best major that fits my mental capabilities ? What's the best major that has a wide range of job vacancies ? What major gets me richer ? What major gives you a job with fewer work hours .Sometimes ,the financial status of the father forces students to choose certain majors .Sometimes ,the social background does that .For example , some parents force their sons and daughters to choose medicine or engineering because they like be called " This is the doctor's father " or the student himself likes to be called like that .In fact , when I enrolled university , I first thought of the major that enables me to have more jobs .That's why I preferred studying computer sciences or maths to studying English despite the fact that I was excellent at English .Later , I changed my major because I wanted the one I loved best . Anyway , I agree with you when saying that we should let our students choose the study they want to learn freely .
ReplyDeleteBasem,
ReplyDeleteWe have a subculture of Native Americans called the Hopi. In those communities, the Hopi teachers never ask students, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" because it implies what JOB do you want to do. Rather, they ask the children, "What do you value?" This question gets the children thinking about values at a very young age. True, with maturity, values can change but just getting children to understand how values work in ones life is a great start toward regaining civility and wholeness.
No one denies how important is value system in each community. I do agree with what Roy Sidney once said "“When your values are clear to you, making decisions becomes easier.” Since this really helps our students to decide on their career path. The choices they make are results of their values. Such decisions are easier to make when our students are clear on their values.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the question is (am talking from my perspective as UNRWA teacher who knows well the reality of our schools): How can we develop our students' own values?
Can we integrate such teaching in our curriculum? Should it be separately taught like, for instance, Character Education"? What about community, religion, etc...? Knowing that, we as teachers are only implementers of the Curriculum that is put by the MOE!!
Of course I am not creating obstacles, I am thinking in the mind of a teacher who starts to think about values and teaching them to our students,,,:)
Zei,
ReplyDeleteOne of the difficulties when dealing with students' values is the general lack of training many of the teachers in the US receive when they are pursuing their undergraduate and graduate degrees. Many, if not most of them, never take an Ethics or Metaethics course and therefore lack an understanding of the discipline and its content. In America, most teachers naively assume a quasi-utilitarian position without any acknowledgment of alternative approaches. This is a flaw in our educational process that then trickles down into the classrooms where those teachers are assigned. We should not be surprized that our students find it difficult to be clear on axiological matters when their teachers have never been exposed to the formal discipline.
As to the important issues of "community, religion, etc.," these are what we consider "cultural capital" and it is essential to understand and recognize both its contributions and challenges. For example, in West Virginia, many of our students come from the coal camps and bring significant issues of low self-esteem and relative poverty. In addition, many assume uncritically an other-worldly form of spirituality that mutes their ability to be highly critical of the ways their religion can justify/rationalize and perpetuate oppression. We work with them to help them understand the historical roots of the oppression, the political and economic systems that support it, and alternative interpretations of faith that respects religion but which enables students to be prophetic in the face of systemic oppression. To tell a student that they should tolerate oppression as a God-ordained condition is, in my opinion, both wrong and an affront to Merciful God.
Lastly, content is always subject to interpretation. I can teach American History which always includes a chapter on Christopher Columbus. However, I can present him as either an explorer who bravely "discovered America" or as a mass murderer whose goal was to force the natives to find gold for him to take back to Europe. Both perspectives are true but one serves to justify the attempted genocide of the native Americans and the other exposes Columbus as a greed-driven and blood-thirsty tyrant. I opt for the latter interpretation even though I know this places me in a minority position. I do so because of my values! My values of Love, Peace, and Justice compel me to reject the rationalizing and sanitizing presentations of Columbus that we see in most current textbooks. Good teaching is always and unavoidably interpretative of a discipline's content. I hope this helps...
Thanks for your thoughtful response!
Dr. Curry
Dr.Curry
ReplyDeleteRich of good points. I think many teachers are utilitarian in a way or another, I can't blame them coz I'd be blaming myself in a stage or more of my career. It is the system that has to change on each and every level. Politics plays an important role in altering values,tyrant are glorified but heroes are demeaned. i guess in most countries misinterpretation of religion is certainly crucial in categorizing values. i loved Columbus illustration!!
Thanks for sharing, Dr. Curry. As you may already know, we, the program coordinators, with the guidance of Dr. Withers at New River, are in the process of adopting an on-line program that allows our students to take self inventories based on interests, skills, and yes, values. If you haven't already, I think you should share this information with Dr. Withers. I think he would find it quite useful. I did! Thanks again!
ReplyDeleteGreat! YOU’RE COMPLETELY RIGHT! I always remind my students if they go astray and make it clear! LOOK WE DON’T WANT DOCTORS WITHOUT VALUES,BECAUSE THEY MAY SIMPLY TURN INTO THIEVES AND TRADERS they may steal people’s organs…..OR engineers with out values they may build buildings that may fall down over our heads one day! It’s time to call for education with values!
ReplyDeleteMay God bless you in your important and exciting work!
It is bitterly sorry also to tell that how could a teacher give her students the questions of the final unified test and to celebrate a high average of false success in front of people in power! It's disgusting! How could this person teach ethics!
ReplyDelete