Experiencing Values vs. Teaching Them

An article by Tani Prero was published by The Lookstein Center for Jewish Education. The full article can be read here. Learn more about Team Building with Tani here.

In addition, the full text of the article is below.

Experiencing Values vs. Teaching Them

Anyone connected to children or the field of education today knows that our educators and our children face many challenges. With bullying and other inappropriate or problematic behavior, a major goal today is helping children treat themselves and others with respect. We have an ideal for them, and we have the challenge of teaching our kids good “midos.”

Kids learn a lot from modelling. They absorb attitudes and behaviors from their parents, TV, movies, music videos, and from teachers. In today’s snarky culture, behaving with respect towards others isn’t cool.

If this is how many kids perceive interacting with others, how do we teach respect and good midos? How can they ever see these ideals as valuable?

In my experience, it is not effective to teach about respect or good midos in the manner we might teach about a holiday or historical event. To develop a child’s understanding that respect is morally good and even an obligation, the student needs to experience it. There is, of course, a disconnect here; if a student doesn’t already behave this way, how can he learn?

In terms of adopting values, one of the strongest influences on a child is the peer group. When a teacher promotes a particular value, the peer group ultimately decides whether or not to accept it. Even if a few “good” kids agree, if the majority of the class does not accept the value, it will often not be adopted by the others. Even if some kids adopt the value, the majority will pressure (by ridicule or other means) them so they eventually behave like the rest of the group. Of course, there are exceptions, but this is how the model often works. In terms of adopting values, peers matter most.

The Charlie Brown cartoons illustrate this brilliantly. The author, Charles Schultz, appears to depicts this very point. In the world of Charlie Brown we see no adults, only their legs, and when adults speak the only sounds heard are “blah, wah, blah….”

And so, if we want to make sure kids hear more than “blah, wah, blah,” we need to be cognizant that it is the individual kid or their peers who will be the most effective in teaching the values and behaviors we want them to learn and adopt. As educators we need to infiltrate the peer group and its values and bring them to actually experience the benefits of respect. Once they experience the benefits of respect, they can decide as a group to adopt the value, and will have learned how to do that in the process.

We can begin by presenting kids with a situation that evokes feelings of mild tension or interpersonal stress. The leader / facilitator must stand ready to ensure that the tension doesn’t boil over into a conflict. He should also prepare to guide the students through resolving the tension.

The facilitator will often need to step in and guide the children though the process of communication and coordination, while ensuring the activity remains fun and engaging. If the children have any hopes of succeeding at the task and winning the game, they will need to work together. To that end, they can only convince each other to work together when they speak respectfully to each other. As the children talk to each other politely, they see that they succeed together. Through this experience of success, they learn that it helps them to speak respectfully.

Directives aren’t a tool that works here. We can’t tell a child to act a certain way. We are looking to help the children choose to utilize a certain behavior. They will apply this behavior when they see that it benefits them. A teacher can explain a behavior and even give examples, such as what a respectful invitation might sound like, or to even spell out in greater detail how they might say it. In this method the teacher/facilitator presents the students with tools they can choose to use or ignore. The choice remains theirs.

An example of this is one of my favorite games called The Reverse Relay Race. The goal is to have a team run together while everyone holds onto one object. It sounds simple, but thankfully creates many challenges. Some kids in the group can run faster than others, others are great at telling others what to do and others don’t know how to take directions. Add the race element and these challenges become more intense. Quite quickly all sorts of tensions arise. Identifying and processing the interactions transforms them into a fantastic learning experience.

Any challenge in itself can and should be enough to motivate the team, if it arouses their curiosity. As long as the students will perceive the game as ‘cool,’ they will have the motivation to play and learn.

So asking thought provoking questions such as “I see you’re in a predicament. The way you are yelling at Shlomo to help you doesn’t seem to be working. How could you speak to him in a way that will get him to want to help your team?”

Why will motivate the children to try to learn this new behavior? Once they appreciate the challenge they want to win. Additionally, when one of them stands in front of peers as an appointed leader, he will feel pressure to perform and thus receive more peer approval. Here students discover that winning does not mean competition. In our case, cooperation will bring victory.

Another experience guiding students towards more cooperative behavior arose in a session that focused on leadership. In this scenario, the boy who volunteered to be leader made fun of a boy who made a mistake. I explained to the student that the definition of a leader is someone who helps his followers succeed. “When a leader makes fun of his followers does it make them more able to succeed, or less?” The leader thought for a moment. I pushed further with the question, “How else could a leader respond to the mistake of a follower – in a way that will help him succeed?” After that prompt, the boy figured out instantaneously on his own how to speak respectfully to his friend who had made a mistake. The follower smiled brightly at the polite and respectful invitation to join in the game and then he joined in to help.

When the child chooses respectful behavior, sees a positive result, and enjoyed the good feeling, he will want to use that behavior again. Furthermore, those around him will buy in too, since he was the successful leader.

As with any learned behavior, repeated exposure and guidance are necessary to turn into a habit. This is possible, and ultimately, this is a great way for kids to learn to respect!

As we described earlier, children learn from what they see and experience around them. Furthermore the peer group is a powerful force affecting their thoughts and behavior at this stage. Combining these strong influences, with support and guidance from educational professionals, create a valuable process towards an engaging and educational experience.