Teaching Values in Schools Could Be Adult Education

We learn in kindergarten not to punch our classmates, steal their lunches, call them names or ostracize them. Those lessons last until, oh, second or third grade, by which time every classroom has got some miniature Bugsy Siegels in its midst.

Teachers have come to expect these transformations, politely telling the parents at conferences that their Johnny is “exhibiting behavioral difficulties” while telling their peers in the teachers lounge that Johnny is a miserable, rotten kid.

The Irvine Unified School District is setting out to challenge the seeming inevitability that good behavior erodes. The school district has approved for next year the teaching at all grade levels of a core set of values, “based in the belief that there are values and qualities of character to which people in all successful civilizations subscribe.”

The values to be taught, which generally represent the top vote-getters in a survey, are as follows: “Honesty, responsibility, compassion, perseverance, respectfulness, cooperation, courage and citizenship.”

I have a statement and a prediction.

The program is a good idea.

It will eventually be abandoned.

The program is a good idea because it will provide a social context to go along with all the empirical knowledge the students collect through the years. There’s nothing wrong in learning the laws of gravity as well as “respecting one’s self, each other person and the environment,” as the district defines respect. What’s wrong with teaching honesty, defined by the district as “fair and straightforward in conduct of human interaction; telling the truth”?

As long as the program doesn’t veer into religious territory, it should produce a more well-rounded, thoughtful and intelligent graduate.

Which leads to my prediction that it will be abandoned.

I further predict that leading the fight to abandon it will be many of the people who think teaching values in schools is a good thing.

Consider a historical reference point.

Let’s go back to November, 1989, in the comfortable, conservative city of Irvine, Calif., where a group of self-styled “traditional values” people have just succeeded in passing an initiative that removed gays and lesbians from the city’s human rights ordinance. The ordinance had protected homosexuals and other minority groups from discrimination in housing and employment, but as a result of the Measure N initiative, the reference to gays and lesbians was stricken from the books.

I would strongly urge the traditional values folks not to draw the students’ attention to that election campaign.

Today’s kids being what they are, many of them might start asking probing questions. One of them is liable to ask a civics teacher why gays shouldn’t be legally protected when they aren’t allowed to live where they want. They might ask why they could be fired because one aspect of their lives is different than the norm.

The student might ask the teacher to reread him or her the district’s definition of “respect,” inasmuch as it is one of its core values.

The student then might ask about Measure N’s supporters in 1989, who blatantly misrepresented a number of facts in their mailers before election day. The puzzled student might ask the teacher for a clarification on the district’s definition of “honesty.”

Well, you’re way ahead of me on this. You can see the potential disruption around the dinner table that this kind of values-teaching in school could cause.

Uh, gee, Mom and Dad, the teacher talked to us today about compassion and about the inherent dignity of our fellow man. I thought you said gays don’t deserve the same rights as other people. What was that you called them--perverts?

If the school district actually enacts this program, we’re going to see an upsurge in Irvine kids being sent to their rooms before finishing dinner.

Honesty. Responsibility. Compassion. Perseverance. Respectfulness. Cooperation. Courage. Citizenship.

Sound pretty good, don’t they? They were adopted along with a “Mission Statement” that calls for empowering students with “ . . . the skills, knowledge and values necessary to meet the challenges of a changing world. . . .”

I’d have no qualms about applying every one of the eight, along with the Mission Statement, to the Measure N controversy.

So, to all those who today are celebrating the imminent teaching of values in Irvine, I join you in a toast and add this question: “Does Irvine offer adult education classes?”

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.