PHOTO: LISA SA YO SA YOUN Y OUN OU O UN U NG
DAVID KOUTSOUKIS
The seven phases of values development A logical process for promoting positive attitudes and good behaviour.
I Teachers Matter
was walking through a school when I noticed one of my ‘Good Manners’ posters pinned up on the wall.
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“I’m glad to see you’ve got my posters up” I said to the principal, Mr Mitchell. “Yeah, they’re nice, but they don’t work” was his reply. This comment was the catalyst for the creation of the Seven Phases of Values Development. I realised that I needed to develop a process that would help people understand that rules don’t change behaviour, positive action and interaction do.
The Seven Phases of Values Development articulate seven types of experiences our students need to have before good values become part of their normal behaviour. They provide checkpoints and focus areas for the teaching of values. The phases don’t have to be addressed in any particular order, but there is a logical sequence. This article gives a brief overview of each phase and three examples of positive action to address it. There are actually eight phases, but I’ve called the initial experience the Zero Phase as a starting point for those children who
have no concept about the value you want to teach. Phase 0: Non-Awareness In the non-awareness phase, the child has no clear concept of the value you want to promote, either because they have never explicitly been taught it, or because they have never been told “no” when they behaved inappropriately towards this value. Beware the “Curse of Knowledge,” that is, when we make the assumption that our children know about the value we are referring to. The realty is that they may not know about the value, or may have
