by Michael Jensen
As a community, Australians care deeply about schooling for their children and are prepared to put a great deal of money towards it -often more than they can afford. Yet, that passions run high does not indicate agreement as to what education is or should be about.
Symptomatic of this passionate confusion are the calls that have come periodically from the conservative wing of politics for a return to "values education' " a debate that has lately focused in recent weeks around the teaching of history.
John Howard has again reopened the debate about "values' in education by urging for a
root and branch renewal of the teaching of Australian history in our schools, both in terms of the numbers learning and the way it is taught.
In his opinion:
" too often, Australian history is taught without any sense of structured narrative, replaced by a fragmented stew of themes and issues.
The Australian history that Howard would like to see instead would include
some understanding of British and European history, an understanding of the Enlightenment, an understanding of the influence of Christianity, of Western civilisation, all of those things that shaped Australian society.
Without here mentioning the word "values', Howard has returned to a subject he has raised now for debate on several occasions.
It goes without saying that Christians and their churches are deeply involved in debates about education in the Australian community. Christians are and always have been major players in different forms of private education and in the public system.
However, I want to urge Christians to resist the temptation of "values'. What "values' really offer is an insipid version of our faith concocted for the taste buds of secular palates.
But firstly: what is the debate about "values' really about?
1. Untangling "Values'
In an article published in The Age, former Federal Minister for Education Dr Brendan Nelson argued that
" increasingly, parents are concerned to know education is being delivered within a values-based framework with which they feel comfortable.
What are conservatives like Nelson seeking to correct by this talk of "values'? Nelson makes it clear that he is objecting to schools and teachers who
have argued that their role is to be neutral, to provide students with the information they need in order to make what (hopefully) will be the correct decision from a variety of choices.
If this is what teachers are doing " and Nelson was light on specific instances " he is right to see it as a hopelessly inadequate basis for equipping the citizens of the future with moral judgment. Nelson paints a picture of an increasingly disconnected, violent and abusive society where "anything goes' is the rule: where footy mums scream abuse at the referee from the touchline.
Instead, he argues, schools and communities should decide what values they share " and teach them to young people. I do find it alarming that he should talk of values that make us "comfortable': but more of that later.
The conservatives have sensed rightly teaching "skills' without offering judgments is morally and intellectually vacuous. To pretend that you can teach students in English (for example) the skills to analyse texts without imparting to them a sense of artistic and moral value is simply ludicrous " and yet this is precisely what is proposed in recent developments in the English syllabuses. Classroom teachers and syllabus designers alike cannot adopt a stance of neutrality (if that were possible) and just leave judgments up to the teenagers before whom they ought to be setting a moral vision. If the Holocaust was evil then I take it we must be unafraid to say so to the next generation.
However, in responses that were no less strongly-worded, educators and more left-leaning politicians and writers have insisted that public schools most definitely are teaching "values'. In her recent piece in the SMH Julia Baird argued that current history teaching does offer a vision of rights and wrongs in Australia's past. Her point: these are values, but not perhaps these are not the ones that Howard would like to see.
It seems that everybody agrees that education is about "values'.
The real question then - since everyone agrees about values really - has to be what, or perhaps whose, values? Howard's issue is not with values per se but with what he perceives to be the wrong values. And this highlights a problem with the whole "values' vocabulary: it actually becomes meaningless to talk about "values' as if different values are interchangeable with one another; as if we could equally select "tolerance' and "racial purity' as "values'.
When conservative politicians have in mind when they speak of "values' is really code for a nostalgic vision of an Australia now gone: a time when the structures, patterns and habits of Christianity both Protestant and Catholic permeated community life. This vision of "values' is conformist and traditionalist. It imagines a disciplined, hardworking individual who is also a dutiful and responsible member of the community. It is quite an appealing vision in its own way.
Why has this vision of values been lost (if it ever existed)? It is a bit rich for the conservative side of politics to lay the blame at the feet of the social liberals alone. While it is true that the exaltation of personal liberty into the iconic value by the left in the 60s and 70s has had disastrous social consequences, it is also true that the economic policies pursued by more right-leaning groups in the 80s and 90s have further diluted whatever Christian social heritage Australia had.
Australia has already decided " overwhelmingly " to sleep in on Sunday mornings and to become a secular country. The Christianised shape of our community that was the context for those "values' now on the table is no longer in place.
Yet, whatever is meant by "values', the fact is that the parents of our community and its leaders seem to be looking over the fence at the church and Christian schools and saying "I’ll have what they’re having'.
2. "Values' as a Temptation
And so, this talk of "values' could be read as a great vindication of the Christian cause. We have reached the curious point where the wider community is voting for our schools en masse, even though church attendance continues to decline. Could it be that our "values' are what makes our schools attractive to otherwise secular people?
Certainly, many Christian/church schools and school organisations have adopted this language of "values', and now talk about "Christian' "values' " and this seems to make good sense given the concern amongst our clientele (well-founded or not) that the government schools do not or cannot offer the kind of values we want our kids to learn.
However, the language of "values' is a temptation that we must resist.
Why? I have three concerns:
1 " to speak of "values' is to speak as if love of neighbour is detachable from love of God and so distorts the Christian message alarmingly. It is to speak as if righteous living is separable from worship of God. It is to speak as if you can have commandments 5-10 without 1-4. This of course is exactly what our society wants from us: to teach a set of ethical principles without calling on them to join with us in worshipping God.
When I was a School Chaplain, secular parents were clearly under the impression that "values' was what I was teaching their children " which I think was how they made themselves comfortable with what I was doing. For my part, I was very uncomfortable teaching "ethics' in Christian Studies as if somehow the students could take the ethics and leave the rest. If we do this, we reinforce the impression that Christianity is just baptised moralism " Pharisaism, we might even say.
2 " talk of "values' is reductive and selective, inevitably. "Values', as we have seen, tends to indicate a conservative expression of conformist and traditional aspirations: diligence, "a fair go', self-reliance, integrity and so on. However, the set of values labelled as "Christian values' very rarely includes the kind of challenge to the status quo that Jesus himself modelled, as the Old Testament prophets had before him. There is nothing prophetic, we might say, about "values' (which is where Brendan Nelson's use of the word "comfortable' should set off alarm bells). Cultural critic Guy Rundle writes:
The elite schools are multimillion-dollar educational entrepreneurs, whose attachment to the religion is now simply a form of thematic branding, a bit of spiritual swoosh.
He is speaking of the Melbourne scene, where various high-priced schools have doggedly fought off the intervention of the churches in their affairs while retaining a nominal link " a keeping up of appearances. His comment would not be fair to the schools I know in Sydney. But it is true that talk of "values' tends to reduce the Christian affiliation of schools to a mere badging of middle-class aspirationalism. The language of "values' robs the gospel of its counter-cultural edge. Though it will be popular with potential customers/parents, it offers an emaciated and minimalist moral vision. Parents want their children's selves realised, fulfilled and actualised; but Christ calls us to die to our selves.
3 " following Christ is not following a set of universal "values', but imitating a " the "personal example of what it is to be human. And he was not just a doer of good deeds, but also a worshipper of the one true God. What we don't have in Christ is a list of principles: rather we have the embodiment and the enactment of what God wants human beings to be like. It would be far more honest " but perhaps riskier " for Christian/church schools to say "we don't aim to teach a set of values: we aim to teach and model Christlikeness.'
3. "Christian Wisdom' " an alternative to "Values'?
A more biblical heading under which to generate and organise our educational thinking in a distintictively Christian way would be "Christian Wisdom' " a category of understanding which is comprehensive enough to encompass all sorts of knowledge (see Solomon's polymathmatic wisdom in I Kings 1-4) and orients them all to "the fear of the Lord'.
For example: do we (as individuals and communities) practice habits of rest that reflect a truly Christian wisdom? My experience as both teacher and student at church schools was of 10-14 hour days six and sometimes seven days a week. It was both exhilarating and exhausting, and I have to say I loved it. This is the kind of activism verging on workaholism on which successful exam results and careers are built " and which fills school waiting-lists. Yet this kind of relentless activity, which is justified as the "value' of "hardwork' (a favourite of politicians), is not in any sense Christianly wise. I know that it was a great temptation to believe that God was somehow reliant on me and my busy-ness " to believe in my own indispensibility.
Now, I am not saying there is a Christian "value' of "rest', but rather that wise Christians practice in their lives trust in the sovereignty of God and joy in his creation in anticipation of the "Rest' to come. A community that deliberately practices "rest' may not achieve as much in academic success: but it will be more able to remind its students that they are the creatures of a holy and loving God.
The example of rest is just one way in which Christian Wisdom might find expression in educational practice. Rather than making lists of so-called "values', Christian educators in whatever type of school are called to live remarkable lives of Christ-likeness in and out of the classroom (as the best of them do): to witness to him in word and deed such that students and colleagues alike are compelled to follow him. This " and not so-called "values'" is what we have to offer our community in education.
Suggested Christian Wisdom checklist:
 How do we prepare students for failure as well as success?
 What ways do we speak of a fulfilled human life? What stories of human successfulness do we celebrate and retell? What kind of dreams do we help them to dream?
 How are forgiveness, mercy and grace expressed in the practices and habits of the school? Are we tough on discipline just because it is popular?
 Would a pregnant teenager feel supported in her choice to continue her pregnancy by the school despite the possible embarassment to the school?
 Can we cope graciously with non-conformists?
 As a teacher, what kind of character am I?
 Is the school's own attitude to its property generous?
 How much is the school beholden to the pressures of competing in a market to acquire new properties and programmes?
 How much pressure is placed on students to succeed? How is it monitored?
 In the classroom: can we make judgments about our subjects?
 Is the teaching of "ethics' confusing the message of the gospel?
 Do we take difficult students despite pressure from other parents not to?
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According to John Howard
Why is choice in education important?
"We believe absolutely in the right of parents to decide what is the best schooling for their children. And it's got to be remembered that whenever a parent sends a child to a non-government school, it takes a load off the taxpayer."
"Great Debate', September 2004
What values are missing in State schools?
"Different people express it differently. I mean some of them say that in some State schools people are told that any kind of family formation is acceptable… I've had parents say to me that whatever residue there is of the Judeo-Christian ethic in our society is not taught enough in some government schools. Now I'm not saying everybody wants that for their children. I mean our policy is built on choice, and the thing that has underpinned I think more than anything the growth of the number of people going to independent schools over the last few years has been the new schools policy that the government introduced."
Interview on Compass, 2004
What are Australian values?
"Most nations experience some level of cultural diversity while also having a dominant cultural pattern running through them. In Australia's case, that dominant pattern comprises Judeo-Christian ethics, the progressive spirit of the Enlightenment and the institutions and values of British political culture. Its democratic and egalitarian temper also bears the imprint of distinct Irish and non-conformist traditions."
National Press Club,
January 2006
How can these values be taught in schools?
"I just cannot understand how anybody in government could object to Australian history being for some period, a compulsory stand-alone subject… It's got to include some understanding of British and European history, an understanding of the enlightenment, an understanding of the influence of Christianity, of Western civilisation, all those things that shaped Australian society have got to be included."
Interview with Southern Cross Broadcasting, July 5, 2006
According to Morris Iemma
From a speech to launch the Respect and Responsibility plan in March and from the State Labor Conference in June 2006.
Why should public education receive priority?
"Our [school system] should reflect the pride we take in public education. The free, secular, multicultural system, open to all."
What values should shape Australia?
"There are two Australias available to us. There is the Australia of the events of last December - the ugly, intolerant, violent Australia that a small minority want as their future. And there is the Australia where we explore our differences with respect and understanding on the common ground of shared values, traditions and citizenship… we only get one chance at shaping the future " and we don't want that future to look like Cronulla, Maroubra and Brighton."
Why do these values need to be taught in schools?
"We can't aspire to tolerance in our community if it doesn't first happen in our schools. That concept lies at the heart of the Government's action plan for Respect and Responsibility."
"Schools are the engine-room of multiculturalism and integration. They are the places where our values are hammered out; where we learn the grammar of cooperation and respect; where we gain the social tools to understand and accept one another."
How can these values be taught in schools?
"...from this year we are implementing new programs in the primary school curriculum entitled "Being Australian'. These will focus on the importance of what it means to be Australian and the responsibilities students have as Australian citizens.'
"We will also provide $150,000 to school regions to assist schools to implement teaching and learning programs that promote cross-cultural understanding and community harmony."
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The other side: A view from the public school system
PETER WILSON: Head Teacher - History and Studies of Religion Wiley Park Girls High School
Is the PM right about history teaching?
"Mr Howard has a particular concern about other states in which history has become incorporated into generalist "social science'-style courses. I support him in this objection… [However] we must ask ourselves, "Why has history been "crowded out' of the curriculum by subjects deemed more relevant to today's society?' These students have grown up in John Howard's Australia, in which material wealth is recommended as the basis by which to measure the success of government and the happiness of our lives, and so prefer to choose courses based on apparent relevance to a career in the corporate world."
Are public schools values-free?
"We do encourage the values of community respect through understanding the history of others…my school has taken groups of mainly Muslim girls of Arabic background to the Jewish Museum as a part of their study of Nazi Germany… Respect can be taught with equal enthusiasm in independent and state schools. However, I do think that State schools are in a unique situation when teaching respect, as our schools, as a general rule, have great diversity of race, culture, religion and class. To me, a quality public education system is truly the melting pot for a society."
Is the secular classroom anti-God?
"In Studies of Religion I find both the Muslim and Christian girls very open in expressing their beliefs about God… Teachers are allowed to contribute their own knowledge of their faith to the discussion. I have been able to explain Christian rites from my own experience, such as my own wedding or my godson's baptism, shown photos of places of worship that I have visited overseas and have referred to my own personal interest in the history of the early Christian church."
The NSW Department of Education asked Southern Cross to make it clear that the views expressed by Mr Wilson are his own and do not reflect government policy.
