The Most Important Problem in Education is to Come to Terms with Values

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Abstract
There is widespread agreement among teachers, pupils, parents and employers that the main goal of education is to develop the character of the pupils and to foster the spontaneous tendency to behave in a competent manner. Studies of the qualities required in the workplace support these opinions. Yet schools tend to neglect these goals. This is partly because achieving them either involves influencing pupils’ values or helping them to develop the value‐laden qualities which are required if they are to reach their own valued goals effectively. Yet, as a society, we are very ambivalent about either explicitly seeking to influence values or tailoring educational programmes to personal values. Their neglect is also partly a result of psychologists not having provided teachers with the understanding of the nature and variety of competence, and the ways in which its components are to be fostered, which is required if these goals are to be attained. Their neglect is partly a product of psychologists not having provided society with the information on the personal and social consequences of pursuing alternative goals which is needed if we are to make more rational choices of goals. But their neglect is mainly a consequence of the fact that neither teachers nor pupils can get recognition for working towards these goals in a form which has the market value of academic examination attainments. But not only are these, the main goals of education, neglected. Secondary schools do not generally confer any educational or developmental benefits on their pupils. Indeed, their sole function seems to be to legitimise the selection of a few pupils for privileged positions in society. Even this selection and placement function is performed poorly because schools fail to credential many of the pupils who would be most likely to contribute to the development of their society in ways which would lead them to be selected for those positions. The statement that schools do not help their pupils to grow in worthwhile ways is an understatement. They stunt the growth of many of their charges. Furthermore, the attitudes, values and perceptions which they lead many of their pupils to adopt would be expected to bring in their train some highly undesirable consequences for society as a whole. Indeed, such work as is available suggests that they do have these undesirable consequences. The solution to these problems is, at first sight, as horrifying as the problem. It involves assessing these value‐laden qualities as part of the schools’ normal process of recognising, fostering and credentialling talent. This information will allow schools to foster different qualities in different pupils, to gear the pupil's education to his own values, and to draw potential employers’ attention to pupils’ strengths. By drawing employers’ attention to pupils’ strengths schools would enable pupils to continue to capitalise upon, develop and utilise their strengths in the workplace. Not only do most people find the prospect of assessing these qualities horrifying, they also think that it would be neither possible nor desirable to individualise educational provision in a way which would permit individuals to develop and utilise their idiosyncratic talents. They think it is a sign of weakness on the part of the employee if his employer has to ask himself where best to place him so that he will work effectively. Instead of differentiating between employees’ strengths they think in terms of ‘general ability’ or ‘quality’. They construe ‘equality of educational opportunity’ to mean that everyone should have the same provision, not equal access to one of a wide variety of different types of provision. If we are to tackle the most pressing problem in education, therefore,’ we have to bring most of the population to re‐examine these broader civic and social attitudes and beliefs. Finding a solution to these problems is critical to the continued existence of our society. It involves coming to terms with values.

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