The hidden truth about teaching values

Aditi Mathur and Ratnesh Mathur

A man came to a mystic and asked for a formula for life. The mystic replied, “You take this and you do that and you get something.” The man was confused, “But that’s true for everything.” The mystic smiled, “You only asked for a formula.” The man sighed, “But how do I apply it in life?” The mystic embraced him, “The ‘applying’, dear, is life.”

Myth 1 – We can teach values.
Lectures by parents and moral science books have been the two mains sources of teaching values. Despite this, every successive generation feels that the next generation is LOW on values.

I see articles popping up everywhere that as a society we have become unkind. Some say we are not teaching enough kindness. I would say, children may know about kindness – it’s time we started, on a daily basis, making them aware of how we, they, and others are kind-unkind and through this they will develop their understanding.
Bottom line: We cannot teach values, we can only make children aware of them through our actions.

Myth 2 – We cannot teach values.
While we cannot teach values, children are always learning them – seeing how we operate in our lives. A mother slaps her child because she is irritated, then goes ahead and teaches the child to take care of others and never hit them. Does this mean that we need to be 100 percent kind for children to learn kindness? No, we are not proposing that we become perfect models, but each of our acts of unkind behaviour is as much an opportunity to learn the value. So we start with ourselves being the source of learning.
Bottom line: Children can learn more from our actions than from our lectures.

Myth 3 – There are some universal values which I must teach my children.
There is only one thing that’s universal and that is change. The rest is contextual! Yes, there are some common values like kindness, honesty, trust … but show me a human who hasn’t deviated from these values according to the situation they have been in. So much for them being universal.

Let’s be kind to children. Let them not grow under the burden or guilt that they have done something wrong by being unkind. Let them reflect on their choice of behaviour in the context of the situation – not to justify and defend, but to understand. Bottom line: Let’s help children realize the value of a value in their life and their times (which is different from our life and our times).

Myth 4 – Negative values are not acceptable.
So greed is not good. But what if that makes me work harder! Oh, in that case we will call it ambition! Since values can be subjective, negativity itself is subjective. If it works for me, I keep it.

If I have been unkind – can I be accepted for that? Can my teachers and parents help me look deeply into how it helped me by being unkind? Once the reason/intention of the behviour is acknowledged, then I am ready to explore other more kind ways of behaving. Bottom line: Let’s connect at the level of intentions, not manage the behaviours that come out of the need.

Myth 5 – We need to show negative values for children to learn positive values.
Most moral stories operate on this principle. Show the bad versus good and automatically good will make sense.

One, you run the risk that child may like the ‘bad’ more (eg: the bully seems to be having all the fun). Two, in real life things are not so clearly black and white. A child told me, “Uncle I kicked him hard, so that he understands he should not behave like this with smaller children.” Bottom line: Just let the child have as many learning experiences – both good and bad. More ‘data’, more sensitization, will probably help children refine their judgments better.

Myth 6 – A child does not know the good from the bad.
Children primarily learn, not from us or books, but from their experience. Naturally, it is less important that they become ‘good’ but more important that they learn how to discern what is good from bad. In most cases we just pass our judgment. So let’s plan, how instead of feeding them, we can get them to learn to fish.

One simple way is to get them to think beyond right and wrong – throw situations at them and get them to explore various aspects of each situation. Also, see the connection even in the seemingly unrelated situations. e.g.: “To whom was the building of the Taj Mahal kind and to whom was it unkind?” Bottom line: Let’s again look at empowering them to become more aware of their decisions and resultant consequences.

The authors run an open unschool called Aarohi and invite all readers to visit and see how open learning can be an amazing way to work with children. They also conduct training retreats and online training for teachers and parents. Visit www.aarohilife.org.