SPURRING VALUES
GEROME G. TONGOL
In this day and age, the challenges of daily life and work have undergone a transformation brought about by rapid advances in technology and globalization. 21st century learners should have varied skills to become adaptive and responsive in this fast changing environment without neglecting the knowledge about character and values.
Students don’t necessarily know what’s right or wrong, what’s civil and polite. So we want to help them learn the difference. Behavior and attitude performance of the students are excluded in the grading system. Some feel the pressure that there is no time to do character education even though they value it because time has to be allotted first to the content.
An Emeritus Professor of Education, Brian V. Hill noted that education is so preoccupied with the foreground of facts and skills, that it neglects the backdrop of purposes and values which supposedly validates the facts and skills we choose to teach. The task of getting beyond motherhood statements at this level has tended to be put in the too-hard basket.
Spurring values will get you through the curriculum more efficiently and effectively, because this will invest in character education and find out that as this focuses in building relationships, classroom culture and expectations, norms and routines, the more it makes easier to deliver content and instruction.
This involves a process of helping them develop good character, appreciate their importance and want to process and practice them in their day to day conduct. In that sense, you will have a harmonious relationship with your students and will help be better teacher and your students will learn. We teach students the knowledge and skills to make a living and we have to do the same thing with the skills of character.
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THE AUTHOR IS TEACHER III AT STO. ROSARIO HIGH SCHOOL