There is a lot of talk about "values" in education, and all public schools now display a rather uninspiring, cheap looking poster with a silhouette of Simpson and his donkey and a list of the sort of motherhood values Ken writes about.
Trouble is, adolescents, faster than anyone, can see the gap between values that are talked about and values that are put into practice.
Indeed, I saw the poster at Canterbury Boys High School, our prime minister's alma mater and I couldn't help wondering whether, while the students at that school today are probably proud that one of their old boys now holds the highest job in the land, the reverse is true? Given the rather run down state of the school, it doesn't look like the current students are valued by our society as much as they used to be.

At the moment, we have a two tiered education system, where we seem to regard some kid's potential as less valuable than other kids. What sort of "values" does this demonstrate? And how can a poster make any difference? We need to sort out hypocrisy like this just as much as we need to look at the "values" of a liberal education.

Indeed, one of the core values of an old fashioned liberal education was the right of all kids to get a decent one. We seem to have dropped that value too.

What's an un-eaten icecream got in common with a multi-billion dollar warship building contract, illiteracy,and justice as it's differentially doled out to black and white Australians?

Sadly, the link is one of a national absence of values.

The ice cream made front page news in The Weekend Australian newspaper last Saturday.....telling the story of what was said to be a teenager aboriginal boy's attempt to pinch it and how that led to him being taken into custody...flown away from his people in outback WA....locked up for days and finally put before a magistrate in a courtroom. And we all know that would never have been tolerated if the perfson was a white Australian.

The multi-billion dollar warship contract....we all witnessed the bleating of Victorian Premier Bracks moaning "politics" when his fellow Labour Premier of S.A won the contract....but where was Premier Brack's concern over the report that's noted we in Victoria have the worst child literacy rate in the nation....that children are being allowed tgo go onto secondary school unable even to write their own names....and that the Victorian government alone spent half a billion dollars on "consultants".

The nation needs to decide what it's values need to be and then to prioritise them. Warships should never top illiteracy and an ice-cream should never be a passport to a literal flight to custody.

Talking about education...when will Australia agree on the urgent need for a comprehensive and detailed sexual educational course for all schools.

For a world being devastated by HIV/AIDS..which is now a global tsunami that infects 5 million a year...and killes 3 million a year...could I ask all educators to promote our www.aids.net.au website

With regards,
Brian Haill,
President,
The Australian AIDS Fund Inc.,
Frankston,Victoria
Email:bhaill@bigpond.net.au
Website: www.aids.net.au

Values?

WTF are they?

I have no objections to values being part of the education process, as long as they are my values and not yours! Seriously, what a sound and balanced education should provide is a recognition and acceptance that other peoples values may be as sound and well held as your own (as long as the principle of do no harm applies). Different does not mean wrong.

Somewhat sympathetic with the views of the author, but he doesn't help his case by exaggerating .... kids are certainly still studying the classics eg here is a list of the most downloaded "student notes" for literary texts (in order):Huckleberry Finn, The Scarlet Letter, Macbeth, To kill a mockingbird, Hamlet, The Great Gatsby, Lord of the Flies ....The Odyssey, Great Expectations etc - an American website, but as a librarian who has dealt a lot with school homework, the same is true here.
Western history is taught - and so is the history of Asia. And surely teaching local history is an excellent and interesting way of introducing kids to the sources and methods of history. When I did history at school in the 50s and 60s it was all British (railways, canals, the bloody Corn Laws etc). It made you feel that the place where you lived didn't really exist - it had no history.
I'm not convinced that the problem lies in school curricula - maybe the author should look more critically at the influence of TV and our increasing materialism.

Teaching values may or may not be a good idea. Saying "these values are Good Things" and only teaching them these Good Values seems like indoctrination to me. While the values he's listed (care and compassion; doing your best; fair go; freedom; honesty and trustworthiness; integrity; respect; responsibility and understanding; tolerance and inclusion) are all ideals I value, wouldn't it be better to educate kids about how to form their own values? Perhaps teach the values and the arguments behind them but ultimately with the goal of having students arrive at their OWN set of values?