Education: Private college values public service

By BRONWYN SELL

When 6-year-old Sarah Batkin boarded the bus after a visit to the Auckland SPCA, she left behind the puppies she had fallen in love with but took away something more important.

Sarah took home a conviction that many adults seem to have forgotten - to care for more than just ourselves.

"I felt really sorry for them because they've got no home and their owners are treating them badly," she said of the abandoned dogs. "I wanted to give them a home and care for them."

Sarah and her classmates at St Cuthbert's College put their newfound awareness into action by doing jobs for their parents to raise money for the SPCA.

Claudia Francis-Ching, also 6, said the money helped the SPCA to "care for the animals and help them get some owners. Some of the owners don't like them and throw them out."

Before they put on the school uniform for the first time, the children had already learned many values and virtues - the difference between right and wrong, how to be polite - but the school is adamant that it, too, has a role in moulding the students into responsible adults.

Taking them to the SPCA was a way of making them aware of issues wider than their small worlds, said their teacher, Rosemary Gormack.

"I think it's subtle, but effective."

Principal Lynda Reid said the values at the private Christian girls' school had always been strong, based on its motto, "By love serve."

However, it decided a few years ago to make a more concerted effort to identify values and put them into action.

Associate principal Gill Hubble said the initiative came from a values education conference in 1998 that generated animated discussion on which values were best and how they could fill a void in many young people's minds.

"It was clear that lives lived according to a strong set of values could lead to happier, better-motivated students and a less dysfunctional society."

She said there was general agreement that values education could provide a hook to focus students on things which provided meaning.

"Schools should be places which provide a feeling of belonging and identity within the school community."

The school combined its existing classes in philosophy and learning with a buddy programme between senior and junior students.

Teachers made a more concerted effort to demonstrate good values and treat the students well, values lessons taught as part of the curriculum were amplified, and assemblies began to promote values.

Most significantly, the school introduced a programme of service called the Values Project last year, in which all students, from the ages of 5 to 18, undertake community service projects.

While the younger students chose to help the SPCA, sponsor a World Vision child and earn money for a guide dog, the older students tutored pupils of Orakei School and Manurewa East School and worked for Kidsline.

"We're trying to broaden their understanding of the world they live in, and apply their values to real-life situations," said Lynda Reid.

The school acknowledges that it has a head-start on many others. As a Christian school, it has a mandate from parents to teach values and a firm foundation on which to base them, and the pupils generally hear the same messages from their families at home.

"I can see that in other school communities, where you don't have that shared adherence to the Christian faith, it's more challenging," said Lynda Reid.

Seventh-former Krystal Simpson, whose class last year organised an immunisation drive at Ngati Whatua Orakei marae, said she was touched when a little girl from the marae came up and thanked her.

"All the education is important, but I think this is teaching you basically what life is about."