The role of a Values Education teacher

Annalyn Mercado Barrera

DEPARTMENT Order (DO) No. 41 Series of 2003 of the Department of Education ensures the effective implementation of Values Education in the Basic Education Curriculum.

This DepEd order was issued to effectively reinforce the role of every teacher as a values education teacher, thus strengthening the Department’s collective efforts in developing desirable values among the students.

The effective implementation of Values Education is one of the emphases of the restructured Basic Education Curriculum. Values education teachers should be utilized fully to help the other subject area teachers integrate values development in the subject area they teach.

With this, there would be meaningful integration of values development in the lessons of every teacher in each disciplines.

The Order was issued to effectively reinforce the role of every teacher as a values education teacher thus strengthening the Department’s collective efforts in developing desirable values among the students; to be able to meaningfully integrate values development in the lessons of every teacher in each discipline; to be able to assist teachers in the valuing processes while at the same time developing the competencies in the subject area they teach; to ensure that values education is purposefully planned as regular lessons in the subject and not taken as incidental lessons in the process; to ensure that trained values education teachers or those who majored in values education are duly recognized to perform functions relevant to their expertise and competence; and to properly evaluate the result of interventions conducted both inside and outside the classroom.

Values education teachers should provide assistance to the subject area teachers in integrating values development in their lessons. This does not mean forcing values integration if it is not relevant to the lesson.

Values education teachers should conduct training or lesson demonstrations if necessary.

The value focus may sometimes arise out of the teacher’s observation of the daily behavior of students in their class which may not necessarily be related to the lesson on hand. The subject area teacher should address this.

The author is Teacher III Bagumbong High School