Wednesday, 28th October

This training course seems to be designed in order to show us new amazing surprises every single day. Today, in a brief though extremely intense conversation with Francisco during the coffee break, we talked about the importance that both of us give to values in education. He told me that he is carrying out a research project on this particular subject, which I consider of capital importance. Apparently, there is a whole school of thought stemming from Neil Hawkes' work, which emphasises the role that values should play in our educational systems. He explains his points of view in this video and also in this document. Neil Hawkes does not only think that values should be taught at school, but he also supports the idea of creating a completely new educational environment in which ethical values should be the cornerstone of the whole curriculum. According to Neil Hawkes, teachers should talk about the moral values in which they believe, fostering the development of respect, care or responsibility, for example. But, even more important than that, teachers' behaviour should be a living model of these values, showing the students how these principles can be put into practice in order to build better lives and strengthen community links.

I couldn't agree more with this particular approach to education. Many philosophers, politicians and educators share the common idea that common values are essential in our society. Ethical values model the way we live and define our social and personal priorities and influence our everyday interactions. The kind of person that you are depends on the values in which you believe, so it is crucial to take these values into consideration in order to become the kind of man or woman that you really want to be. This is a basic point that Aristotle, a very wise Greek thinker, pointed out a long time ago. I feel really happy to know that his ideas are not forgotten, as I can feel its inspiration in Neil Hawkes' reflections and proposals. I wish we could foster a serious debate in Spain about these issues, as a first step in the complex process of transforming our educational system into a more human, ethical and reflective one!