Lesson 4: Values Formation And You

“Education is values means the cultivation of effectivity, leading the educand through exposure to an experience
of value and of the valueable”
R. Aquino

To be moral to be human. Living by the right values humanizes. Some question raise are: Is there thing such as
right, unchanging and universal value? Is a right value for me is also a right value for you? Are the right value that we,
Filipinos considered as right also considered by the Japanese, the American or the Spaniards as right values? Are values
depend on time, place and culture?

If you belong to the idealist group, there are unchanging, and universal values. The values of love, care and
concern for our fellowmen are values for all people regardless of time and space. They remain unchanged amidst changing
time. These are called transcendent values, transcendent because they are beyond changing time, beyond space and
people. They are remain to be a value even if no one values them. They are accepted values everywhere. Relativist claim
that there are no universal and unchanging values. They assert that values are dependent on time and place. The values
that are forefathers believe in are not necessarily the right values for the present. What the British consider a values are
not necessarily considered values by Filipinos.

Values are taught and caught

Values are both taught and caught.

Values have cognitive, affective and behavioral dimension

Values have cognitive dimension. We must understand the value that we want to acquire. We need to know why
we have to value such. This a heart of conversion and values formation. We need to know how to leave by that value. This
is the concept that ought to be taught.
Values are in affective domain of objectives. In such themselves they have an affective dimension. For instance,
“it is not enough to know what honesty is or why we should be honest, be moved towards honesty as preferable to
dishonesty.” (Aquino, 1990)
Values have also behavioral dimension. Living by the values is the true acid test if we really value a value like
honesty.

Value formation in the cognitive, affective and behavioral aspects

Your value formation as a teachers will necessarily include the three dimension. You have to grow in knowledge
and in wisdom and in your “sensitivity and openness to the variety of value in life.” (Aquino, 1990) You have to be open
to and attentive in your value lessons in ethics and for those in sectarian schools, Ethics and Religious Education. Since
value are also caught, help yourself by reading the biographies of heroes, great teacher and saints (for Catholics) and other
inspirational books. Your lesson in history, religion and literature are replete with opportunities for inspiring ideals.
Associated with model teachers. If possible, avoid the “yeast” of those who will not exert a very good influence. Take the
sound advice from Desiderata: “Avoid loud and aggressive person; they are vexations to the spirit.” Join community
immersions where you can be exposed to people from various walks of life. This will broaden your horizon, increase your
tolerance level, and sensitize you to life values. These will help you to “fly high” and “see far” to borrow the words of
Richard Bach in his book, Jonathan Livingstone Seagull.

Value formation is a training to the intellect and will

Your value formation in essence is a training of your intellect and will, your cognitive and rational appetitive
powers, respectively. Your intellect discerns a value and presents it to the will as a right or wrong value. Your will wills to
act on the right value and wills to avoid the wrong. As described by St. Thomas Aquinas, “The intellect purposes and will
disposes.”
“Nothing is willed unless it is first known”. Though must precede the deliberation of the will. An object is willed as
it is known by the intellect and proposed to the will as desirable and good. Hence, the formal and adequate object of the
will is good as apprehended by the intellect. (William Kelly, 1965) These statement underscore the importance of the
training of your intellect. Your intellect must clearly present a positive value to be a truly a positive value to the will not as
one that apparently positive but in the final analysis is negative value. In short, your intellect must be enlightened by what
is true.
It is, therefore, necessary but you develop your intellect in its three functions, namely: “formation of ideas,
judgment and reasoning” (William Kelly 1965). It is also equally necessary that you developed your will so you will be
strong enough to act on the good and avoid the bad that your intellect presents.
How can your will be trained to desire strongly the desirable and act on it? William Kelly explain it very simply:
Training of the will must be essentially self-training. The habit of yielding to impulse results in the
enfeeblement of self-control. The power of inhibiting urgent desires, of concentrating attention on more
remote good, of reinforcing the higher but less urgent motives undergoes a kind of atrophy through disuse.
Habitually yielding to any vice, while it does not lessens man’s responsibility, does diminish his ability to
resist temptation. Likewise, the more frequently man restrains impulse, checks inclination, persist against
temptation and steadily aims at virtuous living, the more does he increase his self-control, and therefore,
his freedom. To have a strong will means to have control of the will, to be able to direct it despite all
contrary impulses.

Virtuous versus vicious life and their effect on the will

Virtuous life strengthens you to live by the right values and live a life of abundance and joy while a vicious life
leads you to perdition and misery. WARNING. Then NEVER to give way to a vice! Instead developed worthwhile hobbies.
Cultivate good habits.

Max Scheler’s Hierarchy Of Values

Our hierarchy of value shown in our preferences and decisions. (Aquino, 1990) Scheler’s hierarchy of values
arranged from the lowest to the highest as shown below:
Pleasure values -the pleasant against the unpleasant
-the agreeable against the disagreeable
*sensual feelings
*experience of pleasure and pain
Vital values -values pertaining to the wellbeing either of the individual or of the community
*health
*vitality
-values of vital feeling
*capability
*excellence
Spiritual values -values independent of the whole sphere of the body and of the environment
-grasped in spiritual act of preferring, loving and hating
*aesthetic values: beauty against ugliness
*values of right and wrong
*values of pure knowledge
Values of the Holy -appears only in regard to objects intentionally given as “absolute objects”
*belief
*adoration
*bliss

Value Clarification
The advocates of the values clarification asserts that we must clarify what we really value. The term value is
reserved for those “individual, beliefs, attitudes and activities … that satisfy the following criteria:
1. Freely chosen
2. Chosen from among alternatives
3. Chosen after due reflection
4. Prized and cherished
5. Publicly affirmed
6. Incorporated into actual behavior
7. Acted upon repeatedly in one’s life