Return Teaching of Values to Schools

* The recent articles and discussions on crime reflect a serious shortcoming in our approach to addressing the problems of our society. The shortcoming is working only on the symptoms of the problem and not the causes. Crime and other negative behaviors are a result of the decisions that people make and their subsequent behavior. All of life is decision-making.

In our decision-making process, values are the criteria against which we evaluate what to do, how to do it and when to do it. An example--if one of my values is the respect of others, I do not decide to hurt other people regardless of how angry I am. So values--or more to the point, bad values--are a key cause of negative behavior. Values are learned. We need to be taught and learn good values.

One school district, Irvine Unified, is doing something about it. They are teaching values. I hope Irvine will be the beginning of a nationwide movement to return the teaching of values to the public domain. If we do not take such steps, we will be condemned to ineffectively fight the symptoms rather than address the causes and resolve the problem.

PETER R. WILKINSON

Mission Viejo