Ohk, So “Value Education”, Yeah I know It Sounds like A Subject From School AND it is! I didn’t Get Any Topic To Write About So, Uhmm, This WAs the Only Subject Interesting IN MY Engineering Curriculum, HahA.
Well.
So, Let’s Begin Our Journey.
This Life Does Not Have Any Explicit Goal. The ONly Truth You Were Acquainted With When You Were A Kid Was “joy”. You Were Not Looking For Anything Other Than “Joy”. You Wake Up, You Go Through The Day, There Was No Future, No BUrden That Burdens You, Only The “Joy” You Get Matters And That Is It For The Day. You Sleep. You Got Hurt, You Cried Your Heatrt Out, It Go t Solved , Great. It Did Not Get Solved, You Contineued To Cry And Cry And Cry UNtil It Got Solved Or You Got Acquainted With it. You Did Not Stop Solving, Yoy u Did Not Stop Trying, There Was Simply No Other Choice, You Were Not Frustated You Just Kept Trying. UNtill IT hAPPened Or An alternative Took Place.
Value Education Guides Us Through the Process Of Self-Exploration to determine what is universally valuable to all of us, what is conducive to our individual and collective happiness and prosperity in a sustainable way And How To Set Our Life Goals In The Same Line, It enables us to be in harmony within ourselves, with other human beings and with rest of nature at large. Such an understanding will be vital for the successful conduct of our profession as well.
Values As Action Guiding
Values form the basis for all our thoughts, behaviour and actions. Once we have known what is valuable to us, these values become the basis, the anchor for our actions. We know what we are doing is right and will lead to the fulfilment of our basic aspirations. Values thus become the source for our happiness, our success, our fulfilment. Without an appropriate value framework, we will not be able to decide whether a chosen action is desirable or undesirable, right or wrong. Hence there is a prime need for correct understanding of the value domain.- Value Education is the input necessary to fulfil this need.
Need for Value Education
- Correct identification of our aspirations: Value Education Enables Us To Identify What Iss Our Basicc Aspiration Which Would Then Lay A Solid “Why” For Our Goals And SubGoals For Our Life. The Lst “Why” In The Seven Levels Of Why
- Understanding universal human values to fulfil our aspirations in continuity: Values As Action Guiding We also need to understand the universality of various human values, because only then we can have a definite and common program for value education. Then only we can be assured of a happy and harmonious human society.
- Complementarity of values and skills: Value Education Helps us Find Our VALUES Which Governs the Domain Of Finding What To Work ON Whereas Skill DEvelopment Governs The Domain Of What Skills Are Required To Work ON THe Goals Assigned Based ON Value Education.
- Evaluation of our beliefs: We can either blindly follow our beliefs and assumed values, towards making our choices or we can base our choices upon values which are based on understanding of reality and we can ourselves validate them as well.
- Technology and Human Values: It is thus with the understanding of values that we can decide on the appropriateness of technology and its application. Both the structure and use of technology is are decided by values. For example: if we value the relationship with the environment, we will work to create environment-friendly technologies (the structure of technology) and also put it to right use (use of technology), say, for the enrichment of environment, replenishment of natural resources etc. Conversely, if the relationship with the environment is something we do not value, things could be the other way round. As students of technology and management, we will be studying, creating, implementing and managing technologies which will affect the lives of a large number of people. Getting trained on technology without deciding what is valuable, could even prove counter-productive as our technical skills are likely to be misused. Therefore, it is essential that we understand how technology relates to us as individuals and to human society and nature at large before we attempt to put it into practice.
Basic Guidelines For Value Education
- Universal: Whatever we study as value education has to be universally applicable to all human beings and be true at all times and all places.
- Rational: It has to be amenable to reasoning and not based on dogmas or blind beliefs. It cannot be a set of sermons or Do’s and Don’ts.
- Natural and Verifiable: We want to study something that is natural to us. Being natural means, it is acceptable in a natural manner to all human beings. When we live on the basis of such values that are natural to us, it leads to fulfilment, leads to our happiness and also is conducive to other people we interact with, as well as with nature. We also would like to verify these values ourselves, i.e. we don’t want to assume something just because it is being stated here or written in a book, rather, each one of us will want to verify these to find out whether they are true for us. This has to be done by both checking for validity within ourselves, as being naturally acceptable as well as something which we can implement in our living and observe its outcome to be fulfilling.
- All Encompassing: Value education is not merely an academic exercise. It is aimed at transforming our consciousness and living. Hence, it has to permeate into all dimensions of our living, namely, thought, behaviour, work and understanding/realization; as well as all levels, namely, individual, family, society and nature.
- Leading to Harmony: Finally, value education has to enable us to be in harmony within and in harmony with others. Hence, when we live on the basis of these values, we start understanding that it will lead to harmony in us, and harmony in our interactions with other humans and the rest of nature.