Conducting professional development courses and workshops for teachers on values-based education and the development of values-based learning communities at schools.
The Association for Living Values Education, an association registered in Hong Kong, is a member of the Association for Living Values Education International, a non-profit association of educators from around the world that facilitates implementation of Living Values Education (“LVE”). LVE is part of the global movement for a culture of peace following the United Nations Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World. Implementation of the LVE Approach worldwide has been supported over the years by a number of organisations, UN agencies (including UNESCO), governmental bodies, foundations, community groups and individuals.Living Values Education is based on ten core principles.
These include:
Positive values and the search for meaning and purpose are to be placed at the heart of learning and teaching, so that education itself is valued;
Learning is especially enhanced when occurring within a values-based learning community;
Educators not only require good teacher education and ongoing professional development, they also need to be valued, nurtured and cared for within the learning community, to contribute to the development of positive relationships;
The development of a values-based learning environment is an integral part of values education;
Values education is not only a curriculum subject but primarily a pedagogy and educational philosophy and practice that inspires and develops positive values in the classroom along with critical thinking, imagination, understanding, self-awareness, intrapersonal and interpersonal skills and consideration of others;
Effective values educators are aware of their own thoughts, attitudes and behaviour and sensitive to their impact on others;
A first step in values education is for teachers to develop a clear perception of their own attitudes, behaviour and emotional literacy as an aid to living their own values and encourage others to draw on their own personal, cultural and social qualities, heritage and traditions;
Education must concern itself with the overall well-being of the individual, seeing each person as a thinking, feeling, valuing human being within a culturally diverse and yet single world family; The discourse of education, of thinking, feeling and valuing, is both analytic and poetic and establishing a dialogue about values facilitates interpersonal and cross-cultural exchange.
In 2000 the Association began collaborating with the Beijing Institute of Education. Starting in 2001, this led to a series of five-day professional development seminars for educators of teachers in kindergarten, primary and middle schools in Beijing, to assist them in creating values-based classroom learning environments. These were followed by the piloting of values-based teaching programmes in 40 Beijing schools and Beijing Normal University Press then published (with additional locally-written materials) Chinese editions of the Living Values Education activities books for teachers, and training manuals for educators and parent facilitators. A DVD was made summarising the essential features of an LVE professional development course on values-based education. In subsequent years, LVE professional development courses and workshops have been carried out in a number of other cities in China including Tianjin, Kunming, Nanjing, Dali, Wuhan and Guangzhou with teachers also coming in from a number of provinces outside these cities.
The Association is an operational body that does not grant funds. Its work is funded by private donations and often carried out in partnership with local schools or other educational institutes or organisations.
