Abstract:
Within the International and Australian communities, there is a growing debate and discussion about what values our children should learn, where our children should learn their values and how they will acquire them. This debate has been heightened by world wide concerns about the impact of violence, mainly as a consequence of terrorism and as a perceived increase in lawlessness within many democratic societies. With the international context (Quisumbing & Leo, 2005), there is a growing understanding that the beliefs and values underpinning a democratic society need to be taught. In the 1990s (Values Education Study, 2003), the United Kingdom included a set of agreed core values in its national curriculum and the United States adopted the ‘character education’ movement and character-building schooling programmes in many of their local education districts.
Now there are a range of approaches that can be taken in teaching values (Hill, 1994, pp 42-62), but critical pluralism empowers the individual to interrogate a set of beliefs. Hill (1994) is suggesting that a critical affiliation model should be part of social studies where an individual becomes “critically loyal to the democratic society, and therefore committed, not just too private or sectional goods, but to the common good (p. 109)”. This commitment is depended on an individual being able to assimilate a value through critical interrogation into a set of beliefs or world-view to which they are committed. What is lacking in the Australian educational setting is the capacity to teach students the skills needed to “critically examine world-view (both religious and non-religious), especially those dominant in his or her background and school community (Curriculum Council Framework, 1988- see Value 1.7)”. This paper describes the construction of a Christian worldview statement in a way that will assist students to critically interrogate the Christian belief system. As such, this framework models how different belief systems could be constructed to enable students to reflect on various world-view, ultimately choosing one to which they can commit. Once committed to a world view, and its associated set of values, a person will support the common good that is defined in a set of commonly agreed societal values (Agreed Minimum Values Framework, 1995).
Now there are a range of approaches that can be taken in teaching values (Hill, 1994, pp 42-62), but critical pluralism empowers the individual to interrogate a set of beliefs. Hill (1994) is suggesting that a critical affiliation model should be part of social studies where an individual becomes “critically loyal to the democratic society, and therefore committed, not just too private or sectional goods, but to the common good (p. 109)”. This commitment is depended on an individual being able to assimilate a value through critical interrogation into a set of beliefs or world-view to which they are committed. What is lacking in the Australian educational setting is the capacity to teach students the skills needed to “critically examine world-view (both religious and non-religious), especially those dominant in his or her background and school community (Curriculum Council Framework, 1988- see Value 1.7)”. This paper describes the construction of a Christian worldview statement in a way that will assist students to critically interrogate the Christian belief system. As such, this framework models how different belief systems could be constructed to enable students to reflect on various world-view, ultimately choosing one to which they can commit. Once committed to a world view, and its associated set of values, a person will support the common good that is defined in a set of commonly agreed societal values (Agreed Minimum Values Framework, 1995).