VALUE EDUCATION

 

 

Value education is education in values and education towards the inculcation of values. It teaches us to be critical thinkers or to regard ourselves as proactive beings in relation to ourselves. Unfortunately when there is so much talk about individual capabilities and potentialities, there is so little confidence on the part of the individual about his own power to make a difference. It is the education that plays a great role in this field.

 

What really is education? It is not literacy, nor information. Education is a systematic attempt towards human learning. All learning is subjective and self-related. Educational activity starts with the individual— who am I? Where am I going? Where have I come from? It is only with an understanding of the Self that we can begin to understand our relationships with others and the environment. Knowledge should not be made remote from individual reality and irrelevant to the individual. Knowledge can never be 'learned'. Knowledge is the fruit of experience and experience is the sensation of the individual. Individual experience is an internal happening and is the function of awareness. And one of the processes of knowing ourselves, of raising our awareness, is to be able to identify and clarify our values.

 

Education in values is essential in helping each one of us directly encounter the values that we hold, understand them completely, so that we may order our relationships to the environment that lies outside us. Once we are clear about values we shall be better able to sift and control information of the natural world, make wise choices and be creative in our mental processes. 'Know thyself' is what each of us needs to do, yet modern life moves at such a pace that we seldom take the time to examine ourselves. We become strangers to our own selves. We follow the dictates of others blindly. Why should any debate be left to a few 'experts'? Why is not critical thinking an integral part of everyday life? It must be so if we are to create a sane society.

 

Value conflicts are the strongest test of character. Whatever be the school we may be studying! But the values we inculcate in our schools are said to be the foundation for the whole life .i.e. the values are so difficult to inculcate in our older days other than the days in the school.

 

Therefore, Universal values must be our foundation if we are to enjoy a rich, profound and fulfilling life. Even as the hands of a clock are powered from the center that remains ever still, so the universal values remain ever at the center of human life, no matter where the hands of time are pointing—past, present or future. So let us all join our hands to bring up the society that is going to the lead the whole world by practicing and by propagating the importance of this holy value.