I have just returned from working alongside colleagues in Shanghai in China on considering the application of our Learning Through Values (LTV) pedagogy to their local context. It was my first trip to China and my lifeworld and value-set, influenced as are we all by the dominant media and chatter of everyday life, meant I arrived with a heavy load of preconceptions about the place, the people and the possibilities.
I was not alone in this. Indeed when I mentioned that I was taking the LTV work to China, the most common reaction was one of shock – “Values? In China?” I have no doubt that this attitude has evolved out of the way in which China is portrayed and discussed within much of the UK and I know from colleagues who have worked and lived in China that the aptly named Chinese Whispers fueling this attitude are in many cases just that. That is not to say that China is devoid of some pretty concerning issues, most recently highlighted (albeit through the lens of Western media) by the anniversary of Tiananmen Square just last week. I had my own reservations about going to work in China because of these issues.
Nevertheless, my explicit engagement in values and learning over the past 5 years in particular has taught me one thing for certain and that is that no person, society or culture is devoid of values and it is misguided to think otherwise. Having embraced this fascinating area of learning and research, I am now acutely aware of how many times I hear phrases such as “well of course they have no values” or “its because of their lack of values”. This is simply not the case. We all have values and our work, including now in China, has shown that when supported to explore them, the vast majority of people share a remarkably common set of values.
The reality is that we go through much of life unaware of our values as they exist mainly within us and only come to the surface when we encounter an experience or issue that causes a values clash. This is why we the aforementioned phrases are so commonplace. It is not that the target/s of such remarks have no values, it is rather that they have (or appear to exhibit) different values and that makes us uncomfortable, uncertain, and often emotional. But values are always, not just at times of values clashes. Most of the time they are quietly informing and directing our choices, attitudes, opinions and behaviour in subtle and sometimes contradictory ways. Moreover, educationalists like myself are relatively late to the party and values are actually much better understood by multinational companies, advertising agencies and political spin-doctors, than they are by those who form their targets. And they are just that – targets to be manipulated and influenced, but for what ends?
I can feel myself going off on one now. I must stop, but this is why I have decided to create this blog to provide an avenue for further discussion and to throw my own ingredients into the values soup and invite others to do so too. My visit to China reminded me of the importance of this thinking needing to take place beyond conventional borders and boundaries and the remarks this week by the UK Education Secretary and by our Prime Minister that schools should in future have an expectation to promote “British Values” – whatever they are? – has only served to motivate me further. Indeed it has for me, caused as big a values clash as thinking last week about Tiananmen Square and China.
I feel the soup beginning to simmer.
Values Soup 
Learning Through Values – reflections on the longest day…and the longest journey.
21st June 2014 and it is three years to the day since we held our first ‘Festival of Learning’. The festival was titled ‘Transforming Education, Transforming Ourselves: inspirational spaces for learning and change’ and in some ways it was the first public outing for our work on Learning Through Values. The event brought together a diverse range of educationalists from a range of subject areas and agendas as well as from across different organisations and phases of schooling.
What held the space was a shared concern with the changes about to come in education in England (the impact of the new coalition government was just starting to become clear at this point) and in particular about the values (though we weren’t explicitly using this yet) that were inherent to those changes. It was a transformational event for many of those there and certainly for me and for my organisation, Lifeworlds Learning, that had organised the festival as its first major community event. It led to the first conversations around values and in turn this led to the formation of the Leading Through Values pilot project working alongside several partners who had been involved in the Festival and a follow up event in November 2012.
So much has happened in 3 years – the establishment of a new Learning Through Values community and website, the completion of the Leading Through Values pilot project, the development of new values professional learning opportunities, the emergence of new values work and connections in China, fledgling values partnerships with new organisations and authorities, and several new publications and resources for release in 2014-15 school year – and yet it sometimes feels we have gone nowhere!
The announcements just a week or so ago about the expectation for schools in England to actively promote ‘British values’ suggests that Learning Through Values as we perceive it has barely got off the starting blocks and that there is a long journey ahead. Reassuringly, I believe we are now better equipped for that journey than we have been, and that we have some incredibly supportive and wonderfully challenging traveling companions. It is not a done deal though. We have a long way to go and the road ahead will be bumpy, will have its crossroads and dead ends, but the meandering and progress (no matter how gradual), will I believe continue to open up new and exciting avenues for learning and teaching and to inspire the resilient communities necessary to embrace and resolve the issues that will come their way.
If you’re new to this area of thinking and learning, then I warmly invite you to get involved and add your voice to the growing dialogue that has become the soundtrack for our individual and collective journey’s. Now to enjoy a full 12 hours + of daylight!
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