We must not just educate our children and youth “to
know” and “to do”, we must also educate them “to be” and “to live
together”. [1]
Quality education recognizes the whole person and promotes education that
involves the affective domain as well as the cognitive.
Values such as peace, love, respect, tolerance, cooperation and freedom,
are cherished and aspired for the world over.
Such values are the sustaining force of human society and progress.
What children and youth learn is later woven into the fabric of society
and so education must have positive values at its heart and the resulting
expression of them as its aim if we are to seek to create a better world for
all.
In a world where negative role models, the glorification of violence, and
materialism abound, older children and youth rarely acquire positive social
skills or values simply by being told to do so.
While “good” students may adopt values-based behaviors when exposed
to “awareness-level” activities, they gain greater benefit when guided
through an exploration of values and their implications for the self, others and
the larger society. On the other
hand, more “resistant” students or marginalized youth turn away from a
moralizing approach to character education.
Living Values: An Educational Program is a
comprehensive values education program. This
innovative global character education program offers a wide variety of
experiential values activities and practical methodologies to teachers,
facilitators, parents and caregivers that enable children and young adults to
explore and develop twelve universal
values: Peace, Respect, Cooperation, Freedom, Happiness, Honesty, Humility,
Love, Responsibility, Simplicity, Tolerance, and Unity.
Designed to address the whole child/person, Living Values Activities build intrapersonal and interpersonal social and emotional skills and values-based perspectives and behaviors. Students are engaged in reflection, visualization, and artistic expression to draw out their ideas; cognitive and emotional skills grow as they are engaged in analyzing events and creating solutions. The approach is child-centered, flexible and interactive; adults act as facilitators. During LVEP training, educators are asked to create a values-based atmosphere in which all students can feel respected, valued, understood, loved and safe. Part of LVEP educator excellence is viewed as modeling the values, respecting student opinions, and empowering children and young adults to enjoy learning and implementing values projects.
LVEP also has special materials for use with parents
and caregivers, street children and children affected by war and earthquakes.
About the
Organization
Living Values: An Educational Program is a partnership
among educators around the world. This program is supported by UNESCO, sponsored
by the Spanish Committee of UNICEF and the Brahma Kumaris, in consultation with
the Education Cluster of UNICEF,
Living Values: An
Educational Program, Incorporated is registered as a non-profit organization in
the
Purpose and
Aims
LVEP’s purpose is to provide guiding principles and tools for the
development of the whole person, recognizing that the individual is comprised of
physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual dimensions.
The aims are:
¨
To help
individuals think about and reflect on different values and the practical
implications of expressing them in relation to themselves, others, the
community, and the world at large;
¨
To deepen
understanding, motivation, and responsibility with regard to making positive
personal and social choices;
¨
To
inspire individuals to choose their own personal, social, moral, and spiritual
values and be aware of practical methods for developing and deepening them; and
¨
To
encourage educators and caregivers to look at education as providing students
with a philosophy of living, thereby facilitating their overall growth,
development, and choices so they may integrate themselves into the community
with respect, confidence, and purpose.
Materials –
The Living Values Series
The initial materials developed for LVEP began to be
piloted in March of 1997. Materials
were gradually expanded as more materials were requested and educators around
the globe contributed ideas and activities.
LVEP’s Living Values Series of five books was published by Health
Communications, Incorporated in April of 2001. The series was awarded the 2002
Teachers’ Choice Award, an award sponsored by Learning magazine, a national publication for teachers and educators
in the
¨
Living Values Activities for Children Ages 3-7
¨
Living Values Activities for Children Ages 8-14
¨
Living Values Activities for Young Adults
¨
LVEP Educator Training Guide
¨
Living Values Parent Groups: A Facilitator Guide
LVEP Educator Workshops are available around the
world and are recommended in order to implement LVEP most effectively.
Translation of the Living Values Series is ongoing in 23 languages, with
some values units or books available in Arabic, Bahasa Malay, Chinese, Farsi,
French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Karen,
Khmer, Kiswahili, Papiamento, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Telugu, Thai, Turkish
and Vietnamese.
Materials –
For Children At Risk
For emergency situations, LVEP offers training to
refugee teachers to implement Living
Values Activities for Refugees and Children Affected by War.
There are also special activities for children affected by
earthquakes and street children. These
materials are restricted, only made available to educators who undergo training
for these particular modules. The regular Living Values Activities have been
used with street children in several countries, but special materials are
currently being developed.
LVEP materials for children at risk consists of the following.
¨
Living Values Activities for Refugees and Children Affected by War Ages
3-7
¨
Living
Values Activities for Refugees and Children Affected by War Ages 8-14
¨
Living Values Activities for Children Affected by Earthquakes Ages 3-7
¨
Living Values Activities for Children Affected by Earthquakes Ages 8-14
¨
Living Values Activities for Street Children Ages 3-7
·In Living
Values Activities for Children Ages 3-7, Ages 8-14, and
Living Values Activities for Young Adults, reflective and imagining
activities encourage students to access their own creativity and inner gifts.
Communication activities teach students to implement peaceful social
skills. Artistic activities, songs,
and dance inspire students to express themselves while experiencing the value of
focus. Game-like activities are
thought-provoking and fun; the discussion time that follows those activities
helps students explore effects of different attitudes and behaviors.
Other activities stimulate awareness of personal and social
responsibility and, for older students, awareness of social justice.
The development of self-esteem and tolerance continues throughout the
exercises. Educators are encouraged to utilize their own rich heritage while
integrating values into everyday activities and the curriculum.
·LVEP
Educator Training Guide - This guide contains the content of sessions
within regular LVEP Educator Workshops. Sessions
include values awareness, creating a values-based atmosphere, and skills for
creating such an atmosphere. LVEP's theoretical model and sample training
agendas are included.
·Living
Values Parent Groups: A Facilitator Guide - This
book offers both process and content for facilitators interested in conducting
Living Values Parent Groups with parents and caregivers to further understanding
and skills important in encouraging and positively developing values in
children. The first section
describes content for an introductory session, and a six-step process for the
exploration of each value. In this process, parents and caregivers reflect on
their own values and how they "live" and teach those values. The
second section offers suggestions regarding values activities the parents can do
in the group, and ideas for parents to explore at home. In the third section,
common parenting concerns are addressed, as are particular skills to deal with
those concerns. There is a small section on the needs of children from ages 0 to
2.
·Living
Values Activities for Refugees and Children Affected by War
– This supplement contains activities that give children an opportunity
to begin the healing process while learning about peace, respect and love.
Designed to be implemented by refugee teachers of the same culture as the
children, there are forty-nine lessons for children three- to seven-years old
and sixty lessons for students eight- to fourteen-years old.
The lessons provide tools to begin to deal with grief while developing
positive adaptive social and emotional skills.
A section on camp-wide strategies offers suggestions for creating a
culture of peace, conducting values education groups for parents/caregivers,
cooperative games, and supporting conflict resolution monitors. Teachers
continue with the regular living values activities after these lessons are
completed.
·Living
Values Activities for Children Affected by Earthquakes – This
supplement is available for children three- to seven-years old and children
eight- to fourteen. Developed in
response to a request from educators in
Living
Values Activities for Street Children Ages 3-7
– These materials contain adapted living values activities on peace,
respect, love and cooperation and a series of thirty stories about a street
children family. The stories serve
as a medium to educate about and to discuss issues related to domestic violence,
death, AIDS, drug sellers, drugs, sexual abuse and physical abuse.
The stories are combined with discussions, activities, and the
development of positive adaptive social and emotional skills.
Background
Living Values: An
Educational Program grew out of an international project begun in 1995 by the
Brahma Kumaris to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the United Nations.
Called “Sharing Our Values for a Better World”, this project focused
on 12 universal values. The theme --
adopted from a tenet in the Preamble of the United Nations’ Charter -- was “To reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and
worth of the human person . . . .”
Living Values: A Guidebook was
created as part of the Sharing Our Values for a Better World Project.
The guidebook -- which provided value statements on the 12 core values,
offered an individual perspective for creating and sustaining positive change,
and included facilitated group workshops and activities -- contained a small
section of values activities for students in the classroom.
Those few pages of classroom values activities became the inspiration and
impetus for this program.
Living Values: An
Educational Program was born when twenty educators from around the world
gathered at UNICEF Headquarters in New York City in August of 1996 to discuss
the needs of children, their experiences of working with values, and how
educators can integrate values to better prepare students for lifelong learning.
Using Living Values: A Guidebook and the Convention on the Rights of the Child as a framework, the global
educators identified and agreed upon the purpose and aims of values-based
education worldwide -- in both developed and developing countries.
Results
Educator evaluations have been collected from
teachers implementing the program in countries around the world.
The most frequent themes noted in the reports are positive changes in
teacher–student relationships and in student-student relationships both inside
and outside the classroom. Educators
note an increase in respect, caring, cooperation, motivation, and the ability to
solve peer conflicts on the part of the students.
Aggressive behaviors decline as positive social skills and respect
increase. A few educator comments
are noted below.
At
Mr. Peter Williams worked with somewhat older
students in a middle school in
In
Erica Palaviccini, a teacher at a high school in
Refugee teachers at a camp in
The first formal external evaluations of the effect
on student behavior will begin in 2002. For
further comments, kindly see the Country Reports or Newsletters on the web site.
[1] Delors, Jacques, et al. Learning: The Treasure Within, Report to UNESCO of the International Commission on Education for the Twenty-first Century. UNESCO Publishing, 1996. ISBN 0 7306 9037 7 http://www.unesco.org/education/pdf/15_62.pdf