values education ibo international conference

3. IBO MISSION STATEMENT “The International Baccalaureate Organization aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect. To this end the IBO works with schools, governments and international organizations to develop challenging programmes of international education and rigorous assessment. These programmes encourage students across the world to become active, compassionate and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right.”

4. IBO MISSION STATEMENT “The International Baccalaureate Organization aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect. To this end the IBO works with schools, governments and international organizations to develop challenging programmes of international education and rigorous assessment. These programmes encourage students across the world to become active, compassionate and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right.” Three words stand out ‘caring’, ‘peaceful’ and ‘compassionate’. HOW ARE THESE OBJECTIVES TO BE DELIVERED?

5. IBO COMMITMENTS SO… The IBO is committed to: ‘creating a better world’ ‘making caring and compassionate individuals’ There is also the sentence in the mission statement: “These programmes encourage students across the world to become active, compassionate and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right.” What does this MEAN? That every culture can be ‘right’ in its own way? That what is ‘right’ can be seen through different lenses? ‘Right’ about what??? My question today is HOW CAN THESE IBO OBJECTIVES BE ACHIEVED…???

6. Caring, Compassionate, peaceful and ‘right’ The above objectives cannot be delivered simply by more information or by raising general academic standards alone. In the West, there is an increasing tendency for education to be ‘outcome dominated’. The IBO needs to stand for a broader approach and, in particular, it needs to engage with 1) RELIGIOUS BELIEFS 2) ETHICS AND VALUES 3) ISSUES OF TRUTH These are not easy issues to engage with – they are controversial and it is safer to avoid them because of this.

7. THE MODERN WORLD We live in a divided world – not just economically but, increasingly, divided about values. Instead of the divide being between Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Christians and Sikhs - I suggest the real divide is between : 1) those who see life without essential meaning and purpose and dedicate themselves to material success, shopping and consumerism, and 2) Those who have a wider set of values which say there is much more to human life than this.

8. China is a good example China has one of the world’s oldest civilisations and the depth of reflection on how to live and what is really important is profound. HOWEVER China is becoming increasingly dominated by the cult of materialism and financial success and the old values, for which the Chinese has long stood, are sometimes marginalised or ignored.

9. The Irish poet, W.B Yeats expressed the present problem well: “Turning and turning in the widening gyre, The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed; And everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned. The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” W.B. Yeats

10. The relativist/fundamentalist see-saw There is an increase in both RELATIVISM and FUNDAMENTALISM and the IBO needs to think about how to address this. It is like a see-saw, where both sides suffer from major problems…

11. THE VALUES SEE-SAW

12. THE VALUES SEE-SAW

13. THE VALUES SEE-SAW

14. THE VALUES SEE-SAW

15. THE VALUES SEE-SAW

16. THE VALUES SEE-SAW

17. THE VALUES SEE-SAW

18. THE VALUES SEE-SAW

19. THE VALUES SEE-SAW

20. On 18th November 2004 Crown Prince Hassan of Jordan said that: ‘The fundamental standards of humanity are increasingly being ignored’ and that there is an ‘absence of justice’ in the world. BBC Radio 4 interview

21. Unless people understand where they have come from and the influences that shape their civilisation and culture they may not be able to understand who they are. Goethe is quoted as saying: “Anyone who cannot draw on 3000 years of history is living from hand to mouth. It’s the only thing that separates us from being a naked ape.”

22. Western culture has had the greatest impact on the world because of the power of the media to expose the world community to Western ideas. We see this at work in China where the appetite for Western consumerism has taken hold in the last ten years and traditional Chinese values may be seen to be under threat.

23. Western cultural background Nietzsche’s ‘death of God’ philosophy The slaughter of the first world war The great depression Postmodernism with its denial of any ‘meta-narrative’ has had great influence: The importance of sexuality and gender The idea that absolute values represent an exercise in power The denial of any neutral reading of a text. Relativism increasingly rules TOLERANCE BECOMES THE NEW GOD Young people are taught to be tolerant of different views and the idea of truth and falsity; right and wrong; good and evil is undermined.

24. ONE PERSPECTIVE So we have a western world which often no-longer believes in its own traditional values. The words are maintained but they no longer stand for anything. The meaning of the words have been eaten away and undermined by the post-modern tide and whilst slogans such as ‘freedom’, ‘democracy’ and ‘justice’ are proclaimed, there is little content to these: In the name of freedom, democracy has often been subverted by the U.S. and increasingly in Russia, In the name of justice, the world protests against Palestinian suicide bombers whilst too often remaining silent regarding the non-implementation of U.N. resolutions on the state of Israel. In the name of freedom and justice the West insists on free trade whilst at the same time radically subverting free trade by means of subsidies, Even the Kyoto protocol has not been signed by a small group of countries.

25. WESTERN EXPORTS Two competing themes are particular modern exports by the Western world: 1) A subversion of traditional values such as justice, truth and goodness which originally derived from Greek philosophy but which have been undermined by post-modernism and relativism, and 2) An increase in globalisation with global brands carrying global values of consumerism, materialism, a subversion of traditional cultures and the fostering of aspiration towards individual success and autonomy. These have had a corrosive effect on any ideas of values education Governments are left struggling to know what values education actually means. When relativism and tolerance rule, what becomes of talk of values?

26. SUBVERTED WESTERN VALUES Subverted ‘western values’ are spread by the increasingly centralised power of the media (including radio, television and the internet) and these are becoming so ubiquitous and are so attractive that they are almost impossible to resist. We are left in a post-modern sea where ‘values’ cease to have meaning. This, then, is one side of the see-saw. Different countries and cultures are at different places on the see-saw but, at one end, stands the god of relativism supported by the god of tolerance which have dissolved the glue binding communities together.

27. THE VALUES SEE-SAW

28. AN INEVITABLE REACTION Any reaction provokes a reaction. The rise of subverted or diluted western understandings of values has produced modern fundamentalism. When truth is derided, when the search for meaning and wisdom becomes a dirty word, then one reaction is to turn away from the search and to seek refuge in certainty. Certainty provides the glue that can bring communities back together. Certainty is comforting, it is secure. It enables individuals to find meaning and to identify with their own groups. It gives them strength and conviction and the feeling that they are invincible and that they alone have the truth.

29. FUNDAMENTALISM: A REACTION TO RELATIVISM Fundamentalism is at work in the West as much as in the East. It is in major religious groups whether these be different Christians groups, Islamic, Jewish or Hindu groups. It is on the streets of Tel Aviv and Gaza City, in both Shia and Sunni Islam, in rural Afghanistan, in Hindu nationalism and some sections of the BJP in India, in the moral majority in the United States, in groups within the Catholic church or in evangelical Anglican groups in Sydney. Fundamentalists all too often harbour a righteous indignation about the world which they see as having subverted important values and has left them adrift with nowhere to go except to retreat into their own certainties.

30. FUNDAMENTALISM FLOURISHES Fundamentalism flourishes wherever a community feels threatened Fundamentalism is not interested in argument or debate – it is secure in its own truth. The impact of this on any idea of values education is obvious. Education will be seen by the fundamentalist as being about inculcating young people into their own certainties. Fundamentalism encourages a ‘we’ and ‘us’ attitude: ‘We’ are right, ‘they’ are wrong. ‘We’ are virtuous, ‘they’ are wicked. ‘We’ have the truth, ‘they’ are creatures of the lie. ‘We’ are good, ‘they’ are evil. Where cultures are not under threat, dialogue becomes possible. Where cultures see themselves as oppressed then dialogue is impossible.

31. FUNDAMENTALISM ON THE RISE Some sections of United States society are increasingly fundamentalist with the ‘we’ and ‘us’ attitude clearly on the rise. After 9/11 there has been a dangerous increase in the idea that ‘we’ are good and ‘they’ are evil. ‘We’ stand for freedom, democracy and the American way (including capitalism, low taxes and, in some quarters, with links to negative attitudes to homosexuality and abortion) and ‘they’ stand for anyone who rejects ‘we’ In Russia after Beslan, ‘we’ are the Russian people, ‘they’ are those who stand against ‘us’ – namely the Chechnyan and other minorities. In Israel, ‘we’ are the righteous who have been promised this land by God and ‘they’ are any who dare challenge this claim. In Afghanistan ‘we’ are the Taliban with their assurance of the correct way of reading the Qu’ran and the ‘correct’ understanding of the place of woman in society and ‘they’ are the godless forces of the ‘great Satan’

32. Two sides of the see-saw On the one view, values education is about a broad, western, liberal approach to education which affirms tolerance, rejects any absolutes and exposes young people to a complex multiplicity of ideas. This can easily foster relativism On the other side, values education is about affirming the value of our own culture On this view, education should be about teaching about what is good and what is evil, about what is right and what is wrong, about who is good and who is bad, about what people can do and what they cannot. The aim should be to inculturate the young into our own certainties, our own truth and to prevent them being corrupted by influences from the ‘they’.

33. W. B. Yeats’ poem says that ‘the centre cannot hold’ and tells us that ‘mere anarchy is loosed among the world’. He was remarkably perceptive. ‘The best lack all conviction’ fits well with relativism – how can one have conviction when any idea of absolutes seems to have disappeared? Yeats says that ‘The worst are full of a passionate intensity’ – this is at work amongst the fundamentalists who are so sure of their own certainties that they refuse to engage in debate.

34. HOW CAN THE IBO HELP TO HOLD THE SEE-SAW IN BALANCE?

35. HOLDING THE SEE-SAW IN BALANCE

36. HOLDING THE SEE-SAW IN BALANCE

37. Values education – a balancing act Values education is about seeking to hold the see-saw in balance. It involves the attempt to hold onto the claim that there is an absolute distinction between good and evil between right and wrong between truth and falsity whilst avoiding slipping into fundamentalism. BUT both sides will seek to seduce us towards one end or the other. The see-saw swings all too easily and we begin running down one side and forget the effort to keep the balance. Where is the point of balance? It is between the forces of relativism that tell us we should tolerate all perspectives and that there are no absolutes and the forces that tell us that only they have the truth and all we have to do it to obey it. Both are mistaken and both are dangerous.

38. PLATO, ARISTOTLE AND CONFUCIUS Plato, Aristotle and Confucius lived within 100 years of each other: - PLATO was concerned with the preservation of the soul. It was better to suffer harm than to inflict it as hurting others damaged one’s soul most of all. If one was hurt this hurt could be absorbed. Plato was concerned with seeking to establish a just and fair society and, although he failed, he argued that philosophy should be rooted in civic action. - ARISTOTLE focussed on the search for what it was to live a fully human life and, again, relationships with others were vital to his understanding. - CONFUCIUS, whilst more enigmatic, was concerned with ‘humanness’ or conduct worthy of a human being (‘ren’ – the word appears 105 times in the Analects) and with the right relationships in society. He argued for the need for individuals to practice justice in order that society should be just.

39. Confucius is but one of the examples of great Chinese thinkers….

40. In Confucianism, the individual is the starting point of humanity; but is never understood as a single self. The person is always enmeshed in relationships and should seek to extend his or her humanity from the self outward. Each person needs to interact with others eventually seeing others as they see themselves. The idea of xiao, filial submission, is the pattern upon which all relationships are based. The young submit to the old and those of inferior position submit to those of superior position. The family is at the centre of relationships – but is only the starting point for wider relationships. These radiated out in importance to the village, the community, and state.

41. Confucian teaching holds that learning to be human does not simply happen by itself. It involves a personal decision and commitment which can only happen through good education. Confucianism not only influenced China. It featured prominently in Korea, especially in the Yi dynasty. From the end of the 14th century to the 20th century, Korean culture has been greatly shaped by Confucian thought. Confucianism has also been important in Japan, especially in the Tokugawa period, and Japanese social interaction is still influenced by Confucian norms. Before colonial times, Confucianism played a significant role in Vietnamese political culture.

42. Asian Values Confucianism can readily be argued to give rise to ‘Asian Values’ – which the former Prime Ministers in Malaysia and Singapore advocated, making a distinction between Western values which were held to emphasise the individual at the expense of the community. HOWEVER: Family relationships can also degenerate into nepotism. If someone is committed to our family to the exclusion of a larger structure of human relationships, such commitment may become a closed system. Also Authoritarian forms of government can foster self-interest. True realization of the self demands an extension of relationships beyond the family structure, and so beyond nepotism, in order to be able to relate meaningfully to a larger community.

43. According to Kishore Mahbubani, a Singaporean diplomat and writer, Asian values include “attachment to the family as an institution, deference to societal interests, thrift, conservatism in social mores, respect for authority”. This list is not exhaustive. Indeed, Asians are also said to prize consensus over confrontation, and to emphasise the importance of education. Put together, these values are held to justify regimes which, to the West, look illiberal. Invoking Asian values, authoritarian governments are said only to be providing their people with what they want.

44. Confused Western ideas? Some in Asia argued that Westerners had confused ideas rooted in their own traditions (about individual freedom and liberal democracy) with universal truths. Asians, however, stick to eternal verities forgotten by western countries in their headlong pursuit of individualism, and their descent into a morass of broken families, drug-taking, promiscuity, mud-slinging and violence. In 1996, after the first Asia-Europe summit, Malaysia’s then prime minister made the bold assertion “Asian values are universal values. European values are European values.” (source ‘The Economist’)

45. Above all, Confucius who has embodied the above mentioned qualities is one who is an acting manifestation of the most important Confucian virtue: ren, ?. The term has been variously translated as benevolence, goodness, love, human-heartedness, true-manhood, humanity. A main concern of Confucianism is how we learn to be human. Confucian thought takes a humanistic orientation and advocates a humanistic way of life. We are, of course, all human beings, but even so, we must still consciously learn to be human. This is a highly complex process which involves commitment, continuous effort and a holistic approach.

46. The religious perspective The major world religions all focus on the idea of becoming fully human – as do the Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle. One can recognise ‘good’ people (and I mean this in a deep sense – someone who is fully human – in all religious traditions). HOWEVER in today’s educational world, this perspective is increasingly ignored. The IBO acknowledges its centrality – but the aim of this paper is to seek to bring it back to central importance.

47. WHAT IS THE PIVOT ROUND WHICH THE SEE-SAW BETWEEN RELATIVISM and FUNDAMENTALISM DANCES? There is something called being human and there is such a thing as a fulfilled human life. This may be difficult to define but we can recognise it when we see it. We can see such a life in Gandhi, in Martin Luther King, in many of the great Sufi mystics, in King David, in Florence Nightingale, in Guru Nanak, in the Buddha, in Jesus or the Dalai Lama today.

48. Being fully human Defining what it is to be fully human may not be easy, it may not even be possible – but the search for what it is to be human and then the far more challenging task of seeking to educate towards this vision is what values education at its best should be about. It is about a dance, sometimes with wild gyrations, but anchored on the vision that being fully human is of profound importance and it is not easily achieved.

49. BECOMING FULLY HUMAN Trying to show young people what it means to live a fulfilled human life is the core of good education today. This means challenging the increasingly prevalent culture that sees meaning in terms of what people own, their gender or even what they do rather than in what they are. The search for what it means to live this sort of life and then attempting to live this out is at the heart of the human journey. Aristotle first emphasised the search for our common humanity and this gives rise to a broad understanding of moral behaviour. There are ways of behaving that diminish us as human beings and other ways of living that enhance us and help us fulfil out potential.

50. FALLING AWAY FROM BEING HUMAN - 1 In the field of international law, the idea of ‘crimes against humanity’ is generally accepted. After the second world war, Nazis were put on trial for ‘crimes against humanity’. Their defence was that they were simply obeying orders. This, however, was rejected. Certain actions go against what it is to be human. The same applies today with individuals being called before the International Court at The Hague for genocide, rape and murder in warfare We have the acceptance of crimes against humanity – actions that go against our common human nature.

51. FALLING AWAY FROM BEING HUMAN - 2 The U.N. declaration of human rights accepts that all human beings share certain rights which are grounded in what it is to be human. These rights are held to be innate – they are not conferred. If rights are innate, then they cannot be simply taken away by a State or, indeed, by individuals who are passionately convinced of the rightness of their own views.

52. FALLING AWAY FROM BEING HUMAN - 3 In the field of sexual morality, many young Westerners feel that ‘anything goes’. Sex is seen as being about pleasure and when pleasure is the highest good anything that brings pleasure is acceptable. The front cover of the British edition of Cosmopolitan four weeks ago had the headline: “Forty ways to orgasm – are you woman enough this weekend?” Values education grounded in what it is to be human challenges this perspective. It is grounded in the idea that there is something called ‘Being Human’ and that acting in ways which go against this common human nature diminishes us. Sex, when it is seen as just being about pleasure without being linked to intimacy and long term commitment can and will diminish us.

53. SUFISM and NASRUDIN Sufis told stories – they sought to show truth through stories rather than getting people to learn facts. Sufism is something that is lived and is a progressive and life-long journey. The fables and tales which contain Sufi teaching are meant to challenge the perceptions and understanding of those who hear them. Stories are told of a Sufi mystic, Nasrudin, who lived in the 11th century.

54. NASRUDIN One story is as follows. A king was complaining to Nasrudin that his subjects were untruthful. Nasrudin replied: “Majesty, there is truth and truth. People must practice real truth before they can use relative truth. They always try the other way round. The result is that they take liberties with their man-made truth, because they know instinctively that it is only an invention’. “ The king thought that this was too complicated and he decided to make people tell the truth.

55. Nasrudin 2 He set up a gallows at the entrance to his town and everyone entering had to answer a question as he came in. Nasrudin was the first to come in and the Captain of the guard said: “Where are you going? Tell the truth - the alternative is death by hanging.” Nasrudin replied “I am going to be hung on the gallows”. “I don’t believe you” said the captain. “Then hang me” said Nasrudin. The captain realised that if he hung him then he would have hung a truthful man.

56. A DEVELOPING SENSE…. Good values education needs to foster a developing sense of our common humanity. The IBO needs to help young people engage with the question of what it means to live a fulfilled human life. It is an enterprise in which the IBO is uniquely placed to provide a lead – bringing together a variety of interest groups to address this common question. The search for the nature of human fulfilment is a search that should preoccupy our schools and should be a legitimate matter of debate even between fundamentalists and relativists.

57. REJECTING THE IDEA Of course, the two ends of the seesaw will dismiss the question from their predictably clear positions: 1) The relativists will deny that there is any single way to human fulfilment, 2) The fundamentalists will assert that only they have the answer. However both are wrong. Some ways of living clearly fulfil human potential in a way that others do not. Psychiatrists know this having studied human behaviour – sexual abuse, rape, torture and oppression cannot possibly be argued to foster human flourishing. We can recognise people who have developed their full potential in many cultures and from many backgrounds. They do not follow a single ethical system but they have achieved something to which most of us can only aspire.

58. GOOD VALUES EDUCATION ‘Fostering our common humanity’ should, I suggest, be one of the main aims of the IBO.

59. GOOD VALUES EDUCATION ‘Fostering our common humanity’ is something that almost every group would endorse in principle BUT once the commitment to others interferes which the self-interest of powerful groups, it is remarkable how rapidly the common humanity of all individuals is ignored. Good values education needs to foster a developing sense of our common humanity and to engage young and old in the question of what it means to live a fulfilled human life. This should be as relevant to an atheist, humanist or agnostic as to a person of faith.

60. HUMAN WHOLENESS The IBO needs to foster the search for human wholeness. We need to ask how we can help their young people to fulfil their human potential. This is the aim of good education. Good education is not just about producing economically effective ‘units’ that will be of service to their nation and economy. The broader view of what it is to be human is all too often neglected entirely. It affirms the importance of a broader approach to education that reading, writing, mathematics and science often lacks.

61. ‘Becoming fully human’ reminds us that human beings have potentialities that can be actualised if we will not turn our backs on them – but they can only be actualised when people know that they exist and are willing to take them seriously.

62. “Dear Teacher, I am a survivor of a concentration camp. My eyes saw what no person should witness: Gas chambers built by learned engineers, Children poisoned by educated physicians. Infants killed by trained nurses, Women and babies shot and burned by high school and college graduates. So, I am suspicious of education. My request is: Help your students to become more human. Your efforts must never produce learned monsters, skilled psychopaths, educated Eichmanns. Reading, writing and arithmetic are important only if they serve to make our children more human.” (Quoted by Richard Pring in his book ‘Personal and Social Education in the Curriculum’ [Hodder and Stoughton 1984]

63. My question today is – does the IBO accept this priority of helping our young people to become fully human? If so, how is this to be achieved?

64. VALUES EDUCATION Values education cannot just be about teaching people which acts they should and should not do. It needs to be located in a broader educational setting across the curriculum. It is part of the search for human wholeness and the development of human potential. The IBO is international – it needs to deal with values and issues of truth in different cultures and across the curriculum. Papers like ‘The Theory of Knowledge’ are an excellent starting point – but we need to go further. Helping young people to ‘become fully human’ is something that the IBO can foster – if, of course, the leadership is there to confront the challenges that will come from the relativists and the fundamentalists.

65. In the next session I will be exploring how values can be fostered across the curriculum, but these will include addressing issues such as: - THE NATURE OF TRUTH, - THE NATURE OF JUSTICE, - THE NATURE OF GOODNESS Perhaps there are no absolutes – the relativists will say this. Perhaps there are absolutes which only one group has – many fundamentalist religious people will claim this. BUT perhaps there are absolutes grounded in our common humanity – and we can all agree about this and seek to foster the search for these in our young people.

66. We need to be helping our young people to be compassionate, caring, ethical individuals. This will mean helping them to make a distinction between what is Right and Wrong Just and Unjust True and False Good and Evil Of course, the relativists will reject these words – but the IBO implicitly affirms them in its mission statement.

67. We all want our young people to become caring, compassionate individuals who are dedicated to seeking truth, standing up for what is just and right and who are models of integrity. The IBO needs to specifically address how this is to be achieved and my argument is that: The IBO is in an excellent position to give a lead in this area, and The IBO needs to be thinking in more detail about how this objective will be realised.

68. Yeats said. ‘The centre cannot hold’ and he was wrong. However balancing on the see saw is challenging and demanding. Values education will only make significant progress in a multi-cultural world if we are willing to commit energy, intellect and resources to ensuring that our young people realise that the search for wisdom about the human condition and the endeavour to live a fulfilled human life are the most important objectives of all. They are worth standing for – and sometimes dying for - in a world which increasingly does not recognise them.

69. THE IBO CAN HAVE A KEY EDUCATIONAL ROLE IN THE SEARCH BY YOUNG PEOPLE FOR WHAT IT MEANS TO LIVE A FULFILLED HUMAN LIFE. IT IS SUGGESTED THAT ONE RECOMMENDATION OF THIS CONFERENCE MIGHT BE THAT THE IBO ORGANISES A CONFERENCE TO EXPLORE HOW WE CAN EDUCATE PEOPLE TOWARDS HUMAN FULFILMENT…. POSSIBLY IN CHINA TO COINCIDE WITH THE NEXT OLYMPIC GAMES?