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Values education, reflective practice and initial teachertrainingMargaret Reynolds aa Senior lecturer in Education , Stranmillis CollegePublished online: 18 Jul 2008.

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Irish Educational Studies, Vol.18, Spring 1999 129

VALUES EDUCATION, REFLECTIVE PRACTICE ANDINITIAL TEACHER TRAINING

Margaret Reynolds

Introduction

Values education has become a priority for development in recentyears, as indicated, for example, by Great Britain's SchoolCurriculum and Assessment Authority.1 The role of schools inteaching values has been recognised as particularly important and inGreat Britain various initiatives have been launched to emphasise theimportance of values education. The Home Office,2 for example, hassponsored the Citizenship Foundation to produce CitizenshipEducation packs to help teachers promote social and moralresponsibility. There is considerable interest in the role thatcitizenship education can play in values education and the final reportfrom the advisory group on citizenship has recently been published.3

In Northern Ireland the report of the Values in Education project,4

sponsored by the Council for the Curriculum, Examinations andAssessment, was published in 1997 and further development inschools is under way.

The principle aim of such moves is to highlight the role whichschools have in developing morally aware and responsible pupils.5

There are several obvious difficulties associated with this. There isgrowing cultural diversity which has led to differences in acceptedvalues.' This has led, in part, to an erosion of a core of traditionalvalues and negates any sense of taken-for-grantedness in relation tovalues education.7 On what basis can be assume that parents willagree with the values which the school is promoting? What approachshould be taken if values education is not linked directly to religiouseducation? Are teachers sufficiently equipped with the necessaryskill and understanding to teach values?

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130 Annual Conference, 1998

Values education is a highly complex area which does not allowfor complacency or lack of expertise or understanding about valueson the part of teachers. In this paper values education is examined interms of the need to develop practitioners who are capable ofteaching values constructively and are aware that values educationand values in education are mutually dependent. The need topromote the kind of teacher who is aware of his/her influence onpromoting subscription to values is linked to the reflectivepractitioner model of practice. The paper concentrates on discussingapproaches to the development of reflective practice in studentteachers in initial teacher training (ITT). Considerable differencescan be found in interpretations of reflection, particularly withreference to the importance which is placed on values and evaluationof practice. The Teacher Training Agency (TTA),' for example,adopts the view that teachers need to evaluate their own classroomperformance to ensure effectiveness, but little reference is made inthe recently published national standards to the values which operatein practice. This paper examines the inadequacies of concentratingon situational performance as a focus for reflection. It is argued thatthe promotion of reflection should involve evaluation of the role ofvalues in performance and decision-making. In conclusion,implications of current approaches to ITT in Great Britain for valueseducation are indicated.

Values education, values and professional practice

Values education can be approached in a number of ways. It isviewed, for example, by some' as teaching children to thinkeffectively about values issues, the assumption being that this willinfluence the quality of the decisions they make. Values educationclasses in this view would entail, for example, teaching the thinkingskills needed for evaluative decision-making. Another approachtakes the view that values are promoted through the hiddencurriculum.10 In this view the manner in which teachers interact withpupils, the rules adopted by the school, the mode of managementemployed and the ethos of the school in general, are grounded in, andreveal, foundational values which are conveyed to pupils.Furthermore, the expectations teachers have of pupils, the prioritiesteachers set, the habits of behaviour they encourage or discourage,the values revealed in the teaching process are crucial to values

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education. In this approach it is recognised that pupils are in aposition to scrutinise their teachers' actions and identifycharacteristics such as, respect for pupils, honesty and fairness.Through their actions, then, teachers cannot avoid communicatingvalues to pupils."

Whichever approach is adopted to values education it is a truismto say that teachers have a pivotal role to play both in terms of themethodology they employ to teach values and in their generaldemeanour in the classroom. Understanding and skill in teacherscannot be guaranteed by relying on an implicit ability to follow agiven curriculum programme, a point made by Rowe and Newton.12

Values education requires a refinement of teaching techniques:13 thekind of questioning, for example, which is used to promote criticalthinking in pupils is not identical to that which is used in teaching theacademic subjects of the curriculum. Also in values education,teaching pupils how to evaluate situations and their role in them is animportant factor.14 Values teaching then is not merely focussed onfactual recall or application of existing knowledge to new situations.Furthermore, teachers need to be aware of the values they convey inschool13 and that their teaching is framed by values.1'

To teach values effectively, teachers need to reflect critically ontheir own values and learn how to discuss values issues." In addition,Taylor" claims that schools can only become effective valuing andvalues learning communities by critically reflecting on practice.Reflection of this kind refers as much to the values which influenceteaching as to moral values because values education and the valueswhich operate in education are closely interlinked.1' Initial teachertraining has a seminal role to play in promoting reflection on values.Hartnett and Naish20 have said that learning about the "teacher ascitizen" is an important aspect of the training process. By this theymean that the student needs to confront his/her values and to realisethe role which they play in determining the kind of teacher he/shebecomes. Furlong and Maynard21 also point out that for students togain control over their own practice they need to come to realise thevalues which are implicit in the decisions they make and in the tenorof their teaching.

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The issues of values education and values in education arecomplex. Effective values education depends as much on the qualityof the total school environment as it does on auricular provision22

because values permeate and are foundational to the life andfunctions of schools.23 In terms of curricular provision, effectivevalues education requires the promotion of teachers' expertise andconfidence in employing appropriate methodology.24 This requiressystematic professional development for teachers, beginning in initialteaching training. An important aspect of this area of teachereducation is the need for student teachers to be encouraged to reflecton their own values so that they do not pass them on uncritically.25 Itis also crucial that student teachers are aware that they reveal theirvalues implicitly in the way in which they teach and in how theyinteract with children.2*

Teacher educators have the remit27 of providing training forstudent teachers in values education. It could be argued that animportant factor in this kind of professional development isencouraging students to become reflective practitioners. Dependingon the interpretation of reflection adopted, reflective practice requiresstudents to analyse professional practice in terms of "the 'technical,'the 'practical' as well as the 'moral' dimensions of teaching".2' Thekind of awareness which such reflection promotes gives students afoundational understanding of values and how they function, inaddition to developing awareness of their own values. Thepromotion of this kind of evaluative practice provides the basis forthe development of expertise in employing values educationmethodology.

Teacher training and the development of reflective practice

In recent times, teacher training in Great Britain has been largelyunderpinned by the view29 that reflection has an important impact onthe success of our teaching. ITT courses have been widelyinfluenced by this idea and although, during the 1990s, variouscompetence-based initiatives were introduced many higher educationinstitutions remained committed to the promotion of reflectivepractitioners. Reflection on practice, however, has been interpretedin a number of different ways, although there is a homogeneity in therange of methods used. Keeping diaries, recording student

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performance on video,30 completing personal journals31 and actionresearch are all used as means of helping students review theirclassroom experience, reflect on the efficacy of their performanceand analyse problems. There has been little agreement, however,about the way in which reflection works and why it makes adifference to the quality of personal practice. Differences indefinitions of reflection are revealed in the ways in which methods,such as video-taping student performance, are used, kinds ofquestions which are asked and the type of thinking which isencouraged.

Reflection as problem-solving

The divergence in the ways in which these methods are employedreveals two general approaches to reflective practice. The firstconcentrates on promoting problem-solving and has its focus on theworkplace situation and analysis of performance. Here the reflectiveprocess is viewed as a means of investigating alternatives for action.This is reminiscent of the work of John Dewey" for whom problem-solving was the focus for education. He emphasised that Findingeffective solutions depends on the process of reflection throughwhich alternatives for action are examined for their possibleeffectiveness. This approach to professional proficiency which >emphasises the need for flexibility in practice demands the promotionof reflection on tactics. To this end, aspects of ITT focus on helpingstudents to review classroom practice in order to develop a range ofeffective teaching strategies. This kind of training emphasises theparticular: individual problems are met, reflected on, discussed andsolutions tried out in practice. This is not the kind of reflection whichis fully consistent with developing a general, or broad, considerationof the appropriateness of performance because it concentrates onpractical outcomes rather than considering also the desirability of theperformance within the broader framework of practice. It does notallow students to distance themselves from the immediacy ofclassroom life in order to consider practice from a wider perspectiveof the role of accepted values and their function in decision-making.Students are offered a somewhat fragmented view of their role asteachers and, at best, a narrow grasp of the issues involved in areassuch as pastoral care, for example.

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This first approach to reflection implies foundational valueswhich inform the development of reflection and are conveyed tostudents in the training process. These values are associated withpragmatism33 and are linked to the efficiency of the means used toachieve requisite goals. Such goals are largely immediate and arerelated to solving the current exigencies of practice or shorter termcurriculum objectives such as teaching number. They do not referdirectly to more enduring goals such as the promotion of valueswhich, in addition to immediate objectives, are traditionallyassociated with education. Where promotion of the accepted andnormative values associated with teaching is concerned, students areleft to catch these from the school situation. It is self evident thatexperience in schools is an important factor in learning how to be agood teacher. However, allowing students to pick up habits ofpractice in schools does not ensure that they recognise or reflect onthe values which habitual practices embody.

Reflection as evaluation of practice

It is possible to adopt a much broader approach to reflective practice.This second approach is more comprehensive and emphasises thatreflection is an integration of experience, understanding, knowledgeand values.3* It is this second approach which is consistent with theneed to educate teachers for their role in values education. Inprofessional development, the reflective process is used to linkexperience, knowledgeable skill, professional values and action.Problem-solving is encouraged as a necessary part of everydayteaching but fundamental questions about the nature of the teachingin which students engage and the habits of practice they are acquiringare also matters for reflection. This approach offers a framework forreflection within which it is acknowledged that knowledge and skillsare not sufficient in themselves to ensure appropriate action. It alsorecognises that decisions are influenced by values and that somealternatives for action have to be dismissed because they do notcorrespond to the value system of practitioners.35 For example, in thecurrent league table culture in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, itmay be tempting to counsel failing pupils out of school or to ignorethem in favour of the pupils who can "produce the goods."Nevertheless, professional values suggest that such tactics are notonly inappropriate but they also convey values which areinappropriate.

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This second approach to reflection involves students in learningthe how and why of teaching so that emphasis is placed on the"appropriateness" of practice. Students go beyond a narrow range ofsituational thinking and consider the general principles, values andrelated purposes associated with teaching.3* Throughout, ITTstudents are given the opportunity to reflect on the role of the teacher,on education and its principles and on the relationship between theseand their own practice. Self-reflection also plays an important part inprofessional development because it enables students to analysepersonal attitudes, abilities, beliefs, values and their stance towardsschools and schooling." This self-critical stance aims to helpstudents understand practice fully, to act effectively, to evaluate theirperformance and to be aware overtly of the range of factors,including values, which inform judgements about performance. Itallows students to gain insights into the way in which values, aimsand purposes are expressed in professional practice.

Personal judgement, values and appropriate practice

The second approach to reflection is very different from the first. Animportant difference lies in the way in which personal factors such asintention and subscription to a set of values are interpreted and theextent to which the appropriateness of practice is recognised as linkedto these. This difference centres around the importance given to therole of personal judgement which combines knowledge, skills andvalues. Personal practice embodies values which are revealed in theway that, for example, we describe what is happening in a classroom,in priorities for action and in a body of accepted professionalpurposes and goals. A principle aim of reflection in this view, then,is to ensure that professional practice is grounded in the ability tomake good decisions which lead to action which is not only effectivebut appropriate. Appropriate action is interpreted as depending onthe "satisfactoriness:31 of the decisions which teachers make. Thisdoes not refer only to effectiveness in achieving the required goal butto the satisfactory nature of the decision and action itself.Satisfactoriness is a relative notion; it is not governed by theconventional laws of logic. Thus, it is different in kind from absolutenotions like true and false: a plan, for example, may be satisfactory tosome and not to others depending on how it meets selected purposes.Decisions may be said to be satisfactory if they meet a range of

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appropriate purposes effectively; they cannot be judged satisfactorywithout reference to their implementation. The achievement ofsatisfactoriness, therefore, is the rule for action and the guide forreflection. It involves reflection on the deliberation process which isgrounded in the kinds of reasons which a person has for acting invarious ways" and is linked to the values to which the student orteacher subscribes. It is this process of deliberation which can berevealed and evaluated in reflection on practice. It could be claimedthat it is the evaluative nature of this kind of reflection which has thepotential to promote the realisation in students that values and the"morally problematic" are an "ineradicable dimension of the teacher'sprofessional life."<0

The School Curriculum and Assessment Authority (SCCA)"1

states that teachers are, by the nature of their profession, moral agentswho reveal values in every aspect of their professional life. If this isso ITT, if it is to prepare teachers adequately for their role aseducators in general and as teachers of values, must emphasise thatprofessional ability involves more than proficiency in a range ofteaching strategies. Training should focus on the skillful employmentof techniques within the context of a range of purposes andprofessional values appropriate for professional practice. Thisrequires more than a thinking process which is linked solely toproblem-solving and the ability to display a learned set of skills, andit would mean that students would be asked to reflect on theappropriateness rather than merely the effectiveness of their actionsand the effect that their actions have on the values education ofpupils. This approach to reflection rejects the ad hoc socialisation ofstudents into the teaching profession which occurs when students aresimply exposed to life in particular schools during periods of school-based work but are not asked to reflect on the values of the school. Itrequires a critically evaluative stance towards learning how to occupythe teaching role and the teacher's role in the social, cultural, spiritualand moral development of pupils.

If higher education institutions are to fulfil their obligation toprepare teachers to teach values, they need to make the considerationof values an important consideration in initial teacher educationprogrammes. One way of doing this is to advise students of themethodology of values education. However, as I have indicated,

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teachers convey values through every aspect of their professionalactivity and these values are conveyed to children implicitly. Thepromotion of reflective practice can promote awareness of t ieintrinsic importance of values for practice. However, the quality ofthe reflection which is expected from students is critical. Anapproach to reflection which is simply concerned with pragmaticconcerns and solving problems of practice is limited in the extent towhich it encourages students to reflect on how they teach rather thansimply on what they do.

Conclusion

During the 1990s there have been increasing calls for teachers to beresponsible for values education. This not only entails the explicitteaching of values education classes but also of conveying valuesthrough school life in general. Despite the importance attached tovalues education, reform of ITT in Great Britain has been greatlyinfluenced by competence-based education and training. Therefore,emphasis has been placed on the promotion of performance skills andsituational knowledge, for example subject knowledge. There issome ambiguity about what competence entails and how it can bepromoted most effectively but there is little doubt that, at an officiallevel, it is interpreted as the ability to display teaching skills. This isparticularly evident in the National Standards for Qualified TeacherStatus42 where performance criteria largely ignore the evaluative basisof practice.

In the current climate in ITT there is little recognition that lesstangible aspects of practice have any relevance in training. At best,the reforms of recent years allow for the problem-solving approach toreflection. There is little recognition of the need for student teachersto reflect on the evaluative context of practice, on their personalstance towards teaching or on the influence this may have on pupils'values. As such, therefore, the emphasis on citizenship or valueseducation is not supported by an aim to promote the kind ofpractitioners who have the awareness, disposition or analytic facilityto implement values education programmes well. Values educationdemands that teachers have the ability to evaluate moral issues andvalues in complex ways, yet students are not expected to develop thehabit of evaluative reflection. Furthermore, the y^ues implicit in

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competence-based programmes of teacher training appeal toinstrumental or pragmatic considerations which are not consistentwith the kind of values which values education programmes aredesigned to promote. In the current competence-based climate it ishard to deny that student teachers will not be adequately prepared toface the challenges presented by values education in the complex andchanging culture in which we live.

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