A teacher's duty: an examination of the short-term impact of values education on Australian primary school teachers and students

This chapter explores the findings that emerged from a mixed-methods investigation of the impact of values education in eight Australian primary schools after 12 months of implementation. In 2006, the Australian Government committed funding to the values education Good Practice Schools Project (VEGPSP) which was based on a national framework aimed at ensuring that Australian children are educated in an environment where essential values, such as respect, tolerance and compassion, are taught explicitly and demonstrated by teachers. The chapter describes the effective classroom pedagogy and school-wide practices that supported the explicit teaching of values and reports the results obtained from a pre-post analysis of survey data collected from students, staff and parents regarding the outcomes of the project. Of special interest are the findings related to the way the program nurtured the personal integrity of the students and enabled them to become more inclusive, more responsible and more honest with each other