British values to be taught in schools

In the papers today it emerged that “British Values” are to be taught in secondary schools. You can read an article on the subject here. What shocked me most about all of this, is how they simply think the answer is to teach these kind of things in school. While school is useful for things academic in nature such as English Literature or Biology, one has to think carefully about whether dispensing “core British values” this way is the best way forward. After all, when is the last time you saw a book in the library on “Being British”?

Where should these values be taught then if not in schools? Well, thats the point, they shouldn’t be “taught” at all, certainly not in bite sized, school bell defined, hour long chunks anyway. Being a part of the country you live in, understanding its core values and living by them is something you should grow up being exposed to. If we are having to teach our children these things, then something has gone wrong.

Values are just that, something people live by and are acutely aware of when they refer to their own country. They are also defined by society as a whole, what people consider to important, like freedom, justice, respect for others etc. etc. I won’t go into a long list, but the point is, these things should be inbuilt in a child’s upbringing. You can’t just suddenly give a child values in school, they are built up over time and have to be re-enforced by what they see around them. By teaching British values in school we are effectively saying that children do not have the values at this stage that society holds most dear, and this spells trouble. Then again, I guess it would explain some of the shocking behaviour we see in young children on the high street today; not having any core values would explain a lot wouldn’t it.

 

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1 Comment

  1. James Said,

    May 16, 2006 @ 11:52 am

    The ‘old’ education system focusing on standardised provision made it far easier for the government to impose preferences on children so a strong national culture and shared values would result. Despite the illiberal nature of this provision, there certainly were strong benefits as good citizenship was more likely to prevail. Ruth Kelly’s new education reforms will make achieving such a goal significantly more challenging.

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