Creating Community Consensus On Core Values

By Tony Wagner

Finding ways to teach values and respect without getting caught in the "character education" debate.

A growing number of educators and parents are beginning to see the importance of some kind of values or "character" education. But efforts to impose forms of character education with a predetermined set of values onto students and communities often provoke bitter and divisive debate between many liberals and conservatives. After leading discussions on this subject in many widely varying communities over the last five years, I have learned that there are ways to consider these issues that can create new common ground and a significantly improved climate for learning. What follows below is a brief summary of some lessons learned:

Of course, different religions hold divergent beliefs, but there is a core of values (and thousands of years of human culture and tradition) that are much more common than they are different. The facilitator must remind participants that the point of community discussions is not to convert anyone to a particular belief system. The purpose is to create the common language that all can agree will be used to describe the values most...