Core Values

Core Values

St. Mary's International School is focusing on developing core values with students and with the school this year.  It is easy to identify the terms and to talk about what they mean but it is much more difficult to teach them to our students and to create a culture where these values are practiced, modeled and expected.  Watch the following video link:  http://insidedateline.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/04/11/11146342-my-kid-would-never-do-that-cheating?lite  Would your kid ever cheat?  Have you had this discussion recently with him about why this is important to talk about and to expect?

I am also a reader/believer of Nel Nodding's work who is a professor of Educational Philosophy at Stanford.  She believes that entire schools should be organized around the themes of caring and that these skills are fundamentally important for raising competent children and decent human beings.  You might want to check out her work at:  http://www.infed.org/thinkers/noddings.htm and consider the significance of her work as we work toward developing responsible, respectful, responsive and ethical students for global responsibility.

Never, as a global community, has the need to focus on collective common core values been greater.  These topics are not just a nice accessory to a quality education but they are fundamentally important to our collective futures.  We have enormous challenges facing our world in the coming years and it is fundamentally important that we are educating our boys for the future that awaits them.  "Shift Happens" and this shift is only going to accelerate in the future.  Will our boys be prepared for these challenges?

Shift Happens