The third documentary in the Learning Child Series, Values Go to School: Exploring Ethics with Children, premiered at the College on November 18, 2005, and aired on public television stations September 1, 2006. The program documents how values emerge and take shape in the school context, and how teachers can encourage children’s understanding and expression of the ethical questions that permeate our everyday lives. The video is narrated by James Taylor.

Values Go to School suggests that ethical issues are inseparable from the life of the classroom and the school. What kinds of values do we want to uphold and foster? How are ethical values communicated to children? What role should schools play in facilitating children’s understanding of ethical questions? Awareness of how values are communicated in the school context enables teachers and administrators to make informed decisions about curriculum and educational processes.

In classroom scenes from kindergarten through high school, in a variety of public schools, Values Go to School focuses on students interacting with teachers, and with each other, to work through issues of conflict resolution, friendship, ethnic identity, racial and cultural understanding, the importance of work, and the role of open discourse in achieving a sense of community. In some cases, the teacher introduces topics related to values into the curriculum through planned discussion and projects that, for example, help children appreciate and explore cultural differences among classmates. In other cases, value issues and ethical questions arise spontaneously, as in situations where young children arguing during play are guided to resolve their conflict in ways that promote mutual understanding.

Interviews with teachers, administrators and the Child Development Institute faculty complement the classroom scenes. Moving beyond the school environment, the program includes visits to students’ families and conversations with parents who welcome the schools’ approaches as complementary to their own. As the mother of one first grader says, “It’s the teacher and the parent working together that bring about ‘the whole child.’”

Values Go to School documents the ways in which schools can play a central role in the development of reflective consciousness about ethical questions and provide the context for encouraging genuinely humanistic values.

A booklet, "Values Go to School," is available with purchase of the video.