Value Development

Dr. Y. N. Sridhar

"No great moralist was made so in a day nor

any one of them was a born moralist"

Background

The fact that all good education is, in essence a process of developing the human personality in all its dimensions-intellectual, physical, social ethical and moral is undisputed and universally accepted. Good education is inconceivable if it fails to inculcate values essential to good life and social well being. Great thinkers in every period of recorded history of mankind have devoted much attention to understand the significance of character and values in life and the role of various agencies of education in promoting these values in young people.

Concern for value education is also increasing in recent years as a result of crisis of values that our society is currently experiencing. The issue has been projected as one of the national priority in the nation's education. The National Education Policy 1986 declares that the growing concern over the erosion of essential values and increasing cynicism in society has brought to focus the need for readjustment in the curriculum in order to make the education a forceful tool for the cultivation of social and moral values. The National Curriculum Framework for School Education 2000, (NCERT) observed that schools can and must strive to restore and sustain the universal and eternal values oriented towards the unity and integration of the people their moral and spiritual growth enable them to realise the treasure with in. The school curriculum has to contain components that communicate essential values in their totality. This revival of internet in value education in recent years in our country appears to have arisen from the growing realisation that the complexity of Indian society with a heterogeneous population belonging to diverse culture, religions and creed preludes the provision for religious education and this situation can be met by introduction of education in values. The recent term `value education' is preferred to the traditional approaches such as moral education, religious education, social and character education, moral and spiritual education.

Education and Value Development

If moral or value education is to be effectively undertaken, it must be firmly based on the principles of value development. Value development denotes different things to different people. The process of value development can be vsiualised from philosophical, psychological and sociological perspectives. Lawrence Kohlberg is of the opinion that moral development is the meeting ground of philosophy and psychology. One of the distinguishing fentures of Indian philosophy is that throughout its long history, it has continuously given the foremost place to values. Our aims of value development and education is derived from this root. Value development is amalgamation of several forces. It is multidimensional, comprehensive process whereby individual learn to consciously choose, think logically and adopt the norms of values governing the conduct and behaviour. Values are reflected in the personality of the individual in its various dimensions-physical, intellectual, emotional and moral.

The true end of this development is to make the individual autonomous, leading to state where the individual is able to act in accordance with universal principles and values, which he accepts in relation to the larger society.

The quest for values and its development is not an easy one either for the individual or the group. Yet on its outcome only depends the destiny of the individual as well as the destiny of society. As a general rule therefore value orientation is integral to all stages of upbringing, formal education, interaction between individuals and social groups.

Values are thus inseparable from life of the individual. It permeates the whole life, since education is an essential requirement and an integral point of education, the aims of education, content and methodology is viewed in terms of value development. Values and development are used interchangeably. Human development cannot be conceived in the absence of values. Emphasizing the role of education in moral development John Dewey (1950) remarked that aim of education is growth or development both intellectual and moral. Ethical and psychological principles can aid the school in the greatest of all reconstruction, the building of a free and powerful character. Only knowledge of the order of connection of the stages in psychological development can ensure this. Education is the work of supplying the conditions, which will ensure the psychological function to mature in the finest and fullest manner.

Universal Moral Values

It the goal of education and development is to make the individual a thinking being capable of judging and decision making, one should accept the supremacy of moral values. Morality is the under current that passes through all life activities. It is not difficult to understand then, why there is a tendency to reduce an values to moral ones moral values regulate human conduct at much deeper levels of our personality thus not other values do. So moral values tend take precedence over other values. In the realm of developmental psychology also. Moral value is treated as a core value. The entire process of value development is viewed as a multidimensional and continuous process leading to the state where the individual is able to understand, imbibe and act according to universal moral principles and values, which he accepts in relation to the larger society. Value development includes both thinking morally and behaving morally. Moral thinking is a distinct type of thinking characterised by the existence or rational choice. A person with values is not only a person who does the right thing but also one who does it for the right reason. Hence the value of righteousness or Dharma dominates over other values.

Education from the value development point of view is a scientific process of developing a desirable form of thinking and ability to deal with issues related to values. Values form a significant aspect of all the areas of development as indicated in the following table.

VALUES AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT 

 * Not exhaustive and complete

It should be noted that moral or value development is a continuous, cumulative and highly interdependent process touching all the aspects of personality.   Moral development is the axis on which revolves ones personality and character.  Feeding the intellectual and starving the spiritual or ethical dimension is dangerous and would be a potential threat to social life of the individual.  Based on its nature, moral development has been studied as part of cognitive development, social learning and psychoanalytic dimensions.  The outcome of the studies conducted by serveral development psychologists are very useful is deciding about the activities in value education for school children. 

John Dewey proposed the following levels of ethical behaviour

¨ The pre-moral level of behaviour

¨ The conventional level of behaviour in which the individual accepts with little critical reflection the standards of his group

¨ The autonomous level in which conduct is guided by individual thinking and judging.

Jean Piaget proposed a stage theory of moral development. Moral judgement is the basis of moral development. The earliest stage of child's morality is Heterogeneous morality governed by adult constraints or restrictions imposed by adults. The child considers an act wrong because the act is likely to bring punishment or restrictions. As the age advances, the child reaches a stage of Autonomous morality. The growing individual regards the rules as sacred and unchangeable. He identifies justice with rules and regulations of authority.

Lawrence Kohlberg elaborated Piagets theory of moral development and identified three levels of morality. He assumed that the development of the capacity for moral judgment is a continous and gradual. The three levels of moral development is divided into six stages, each of these six stages are defined by 12 basic moral aspects, issues or values. The stages and levels

Level I:- Pre conventional

Stage 1 Moral motives are defined interns of avoiding punishment

Stage 2 It is the desiring for obtaining rewards to have favours returned

Level II: - Conventional

Stage 3 Moral conscience function to avoid disapproval and dislikes by others.

Stage 4 It function to avoid censure by legitimate authorities and the resulting guilt

Level III Post conventional

Stage 5 Motivation lies in the desire to maintain the respect of an impartial spectator judging interns of community welfare

Stage 6 Conformity to moral principles serves to avoid self-condemnation.

Several research studies have been conducted based on this stage theory and educational interventions programmes have been developed using the Defining Issue Tests developed by Kohlberg, a test to measure and develop capacity for moral judgement. The DIT test consist of moral or value dilemmas.

Sigmund Frend, the father of Psychoanalysis views moral development as an identification process. The young child identifies himself with parents and internalises the adult rules which lead to the development of morality. He considers superEgo primarily responsible for developing a moral frame of reference. The psychoanalytic school emphasises parent-child relationship as the basis of moral development.

Albert Bandra, a Social learning theorist, is the exponent of observational learning. He studied the effect of modeling on learning of moral values. He considers imitation as the important determinant of morality. Televised aggenssion elicit aggressive behaviour while disciplined, restrained actions in visual media like TV elicit constructive behaviour. The content of communication media serves as the sources of values. Teachers and parents acts as a models

for children to cultivate socially desirable behavioural patterns.

The implications of these theories of moral development to the field of education are many and varied. Value education should be developmental value education, not just and external activity. It should be noted unlike physical or intellectual development, value development does not depend on heredity. It is purely an acquired character. It is a life long process. One is not too old at any stage of his life to learn and make value judgment. No person can acquire moral value without living in the midst of human society. Good education and environment acts simply as catalysts of value development. Environmental stimulation and opportunities to learn and interaction with human beings are the essential requirements in the development of capacity for moral or value judgment which is the main aim of value education. Value development is not a sudden transformation of personality of the individual. Values are not only caught but should also be developed systematically through planned efforts. Inculcation should be preferred to indoctrination. Teaching should be a developmental activity. Value percepts and value practices should always go hand in hand. All values are valuable and value hierarchy should be firmly based on human developmental requirements.