Perspectives of Values in Teacher Education

Value is what is desired, liked or preferred. Values refer to those things what men desire, like, prefer. Values pre-suppose conscious beings with likes, and prejudices. Value may be defined as a concept of standards. It may be cultural or merely personal, by which things are compared and approved or disapproved related to one another. Values may be nurtured through direct and indirect methods. The direct method attempts to instil virtues by cantering attention directly upon them through discussing and illustrating them, memorizing and reciting creeds, verses, slogans, oaths, pledges, golden texts etc. that suggest analyzing actions and events in order to discover them and applying them directly to the lives of pupils. One of the major tasks of teacher education, both at pre-service and in-service level, should be to present theoretical and practical perspectives to teachers and to facilitate their critical reflection on them as a basis for classroom practice. The most important aspect of the value oriented programmes is that the teachers should set examples of good conduct and behaviour which the students may imbibe in them. Swami Vivekananda says, “The life is short, the varieties of the world are transient, but they alone live, who live for others the rest are more dead than alive”.