Communication of Values in Day Care Facilities for Children

Transcription

1 Communication of Values in Day Care Facilities for Children by Ilse Wehrmann Many parents feel uncertain about their children s education. In contrast to former times, when values on child care and upbringing were passed on from generation to generation, parents are often left alone with this task. In addition, the demands on parents to provide the right upbringing for their children have grown and --in view of the increased fragility of relationships and accompanying deterioration of traditions and religious ties - it becomes more and more difficult to fulfill the educational role of parent. Many parents are uncertain, especially regarding religious questions and the imparting of fundamental values. According to surveys, the basic Christian values in child education are still a top priority among parents. The majority of the German population (84 percent) is in favor of educating children in accordance with the principle of fraternal love and kindness to encourage them to be generous to the needy (83 percent) and enable them to develop their conscience (80 percent). Almost two thirds are of the opinion that children should have the religious origin of the high church holidays explained to them. The evangelical child day care facilities are able to address the increased demand for value communication. The teaching of values through religious education has always been an implicit part of early childhood upbringing, education and care in evangelical child day care facilities, which provide children with cognitive, emotional and religious education while also imparting standards for everyday life and human interaction. Evangelical facilities can look to a vast store of religious teachings for communication of Christian values. Starting from the Christian conception of man, the communication of values takes place under the premise that Christianity has to do primarily with the love of God and the faith in Him, as well as that the Ten Commandments, which simultaneously protect and obligate us, are a sign of His love for us as people. The Ten Commandments, which Moses received from God chiseled in stone, have provided people with clear guidance about right and wrong, good and

2 evil since time immemorial. Indeed, they are the standard against which our basic values and norms are measured. With the Ten Commandments God did not want to constrain the people in what they should or should not do, but rather to offer them aids for a good and meaningful life with Him and with each other. This is the context in which the communication of values and religious education in protestant child day-care facilities are pedagogically related. Nevertheless, it must be noted that the teaching of values is not a matter for the churches alone, but a task for society as a whole, including people and institutions with other beliefs. Everyone has to stand up for the fundamental values of our society, such as justice, respect, tolerance, solidarity or non-violence. On the other hand, it must be noted that the communication and teaching of values do not take place through institutions, i.e. also not through churches and kindergartens, but by people. Children are not guided by value systems or rules of conduct, but by the example of the people around them -- most of all their parents and teachers. Children observe how parents and teachers live their values and watch closely how they deal with guilt and failure, criticism and praise, or forgiveness and rewards. To avoid exposing children to an uncoordinated comparison of value perceptions, when it comes to this important topic of value communication, evangelical child day care facilities assign great importance to close cooperation with parents through education partnerships. The goal is not to impose the rules of the child day care facility on the parents, but to inform them well about the underlying value system, teaching, education, and support in the respective facility. It is also important to provide children with a living example that not all rules are indispensible basic values, but that it is important to negotiate the rules of living together, to regularly review them and, if necessary, to change them. This is very important because in this early age children internalize values and standards that can affect their whole life. Due to their need for social acceptance they take on the values of their reference groups into their own normative and value system. This is an area where the staff of evangelical child day care facilities intervene with professional guidance by introducing the children to

3 Christian and constitutionally conformant values and explain to them the significance of these values for their own behavior. As a result, the children not only learn to follow rules but also to change them in dialog with others, if this is justified by good arguments or higher values. The communication of values cannot be taught by any method or magic teaching formula, but grows out of value-oriented interaction with the children. Children who experience first-hand that they are appreciated, valued and accepted learn to show respect and appreciation towards other people. Conveying this approach to children is an essential task of the evangelical child day care facilities. This is where, through their encounters with other children and professional staff, children can learn how to deal with ethical questions, find answers to questions, and arrive at a standpoint of their own. Particularly in this area educators can draw on a great store of biblical stories, which offer guidance on the identification of normative principles and values. Thus, for example, the story of Lazarus describes the conflict between rich and poor, and tells children that God is with the poor. Jesus' demand to all who think that they are beyond reproach, "let him cast the first stone", provides an excellent example and encouragement to critically reflect on one's own moral precepts under the aspect of self-righteousness. The parable of the Good Samaritan stands for commitment and involvement on behalf of the disadvantaged and sick. Jesus plea on the cross, that God may forgive his tormentors "for they do not know what they are doing," is a prime example for the forgiveness of sin. The Bible offers innumerable stories like these, which vividly convey living Christian standards and values to children. It must be emphasized that the aim is not to reduce Christian tradition to a few stories that in turn filter down to a few moral statements suitable for value communication. The story of Jesus' welcoming treatment of the successful tax collector Zacchaeus, who is socially discriminated against because of occupational corruption, again and again serves to illustrate the moral that outsiders should be integrated. There are certainly no objections to this, unless the children would be overburdened, for example by presenting Jesus as a moral role model, instead of giving them a chance to feel accepted by Jesus despite all rejection, as Zacchaeus was. If religious teaching and the telling of biblical stories are reduced to the moral contents alone, they forfeit their best chances for communication of values.

4 Religion is a source, from which people can gain strength to live morally. However it is by no means to be understood as a catalog of specific moral precepts. Another misunderstanding in the teaching of values is the attempt to offer clear solutions against the backdrop of a confusing diversity of problems. In this respect, caution is a must as the attempt to solve complicated topical issues with seemingly simple answers from the past or the Christian story of Genesis ends in fundamentalism. Religious education cannot be equated with a tendency to fundamentalist simplification; rather, dynamic religion creates a counterpoint and a force to endure the ambiguous and confusing. Thirdly, care should be taken not to exceed the boundaries of religious education, especially in cases when the aim is to indoctrinate children and teenagers with values which show them their duties and are to solve their problems amidst the increasing breakdown of values and the consequences of the increasing dangers of social amorality. In this respect, it appears as cynical to want to correct values in children that have been imparted by the social moral values of adults. Pedagogy cannot remedy with morals those causes which are engendered by morally apathetic politics and social reality. Value teaching cannot remedy what every day reality and politics fall short of. Such an approach places an insurmountable burden on pedagogy and religious education while also misusing it as means for differently defined purposes. What has to be done in view of this? Evangelical child day care facilities see it as a task of religious education to decisively impart an accepted canon of correct values to the children. Special attention is to be paid to overcoming the prevailing double standards of morality as they apply to children, on other hand, and to adults, on the other. The question here is not if we have sufficient values that we can stake high enough and formulate loudly enough, but how we communicate these values to the children. In addition, the communication medium is not the sermon, the teaching, the demand, and not the argumentation or reasoning, but most of all the concrete experience of values in daily life, the authentic role-model example, and daily practice by teachers in the child day care centers. Values are not teachable, they are only learnable. This awareness is decisive for the

5 communication of values in evangelical child day care facilities. Children do not have the values they need for an independent and responsible life by nature, but have to learn them. Their parents and teachers are responsible for imparting these values to children, however not through moralistic teachings, but by living examples and cohabitation in society. The goal is not to give children ready-made solutions, but to create the prerequisites that enable them to deal morally with the challenges of the future. This is the task and necessity of religious education and communication of values of evangelical child day care facilities. Literature Available only in German Brahms, R.: Leitsatze zur Trägerschaft evangelischer Tageseinrichtungen für Kinder. In: Bundesvereinigung Evangelsicher Tageseinrichtungen für Kinder e.v./diakonisches Institut für Qualitätsmanagement und Forschung: Bundes- Rahmenhandbuch. Qualitätsmanagement für Evangelische Kindertageseinrichtungen. Stuttgart 2002 Brahms, R.: Religiöse Dimensionen in der Bildungsdiskussion. In: Wehrmann, I. (Hrsg.): Kindergarten und ihre Zukunft. Weinheim, Basel, Berlin 2004 Haas, H.-S.: Der Bildungsauftrag evangelischer Tageseinrichtungen für Kinder aus religionspädagogischer Sicht. In: Bundesvereinigung Evangelischer Tageseinrichtungen für Kinder e.v./diakonisches Institut für Qualitätsmanagement und Forschung: Bundes-Rahmenhandbuch. Qualitätsmanagement für Evangelische Kindertageseinrichtungen. Stuttgart 2002 Harz, F.: Das biblisch-christliche Menschenbild und seine Bedeutung für evangelische Tageseinrichtungen für Kinder. In: Bundesvereinigung Evangelischer

6 Tageseinrichtungen für Kinder e.v./diakonisches Institut für Qualitätsmanagement und Forschung: Bundes-Rahmenhandbuch. Qualitätsmanagement für Evangelische Kindertageseinrichtungen. Stuttgart 2002 Deutsche Shell (Hrsg.): Jugend Frankfurt am Main 2006 GfK Nürnberg: Repräsentativbefragung zum Thema,Glaube im AIltag, August 2006