The role of values in school discipline

Abstract

Despite the fact that the Constitution of South Africa uses language that could be described as “value-language”, our country is experiencing an intense moral crisis. There is an urgent need to establish ways of finding answers to the value crisis in South Africa. Morality has been and is part of education. In this article the relationship between values, education and discipline is addressed from a Biblically-based (in this case, reformational) perspective. The teacher as secondary educator plays an important role in the establishment of values among learners. The Department of Education has made clear its intention to establish values in schools in its Manifesto on Values, Education and Democracy. The values emphasised in this document concur with the ideals of nation-building in the new democratic South Africa. Unfortunately, the absence of discipline and self-discipline among learners and educators implies that these ideals cannot be realised. The main cause of discipline problems can possibly be ascribed to the absence of a value system rooted in a specific life and worldview, for without such a perspective the management of discipline problems can only be symptomatic.