Hill, Angela, and Vick, Malcolm (2007) Moving values beyond the half hour: peer leadership and school vision - a case study of Townsville cluster, Queensland. In: Lovat, Terry, and Toomey, Ron, (eds.) Values Education and Quality Teaching: the double helix effect. David Barlow Publishing, Terrigal, NSW, Australia, pp. 69-90.

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Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of a school cluster's take up of the Peer Support Program, a program with the potential to support Values Education in primary and secondary schools. The Peer Support program is one of many pre-packaged programs available to schools and in this chapter we argue that such programs can be adopted in a range of ways as Values Education initiatives. As both a cautionary and a celebratory tale, we examine the implementation of the program across the cluster, drawing on seven case studies completed as part of work to benchmark schools against examples of good practice Values Education internationally. The chapter discusses the various levels at which the Peer Support program impacted on the life of the schools, transforming broad approaches to social relations within them, through teachers' perceptions of changes in relations within the school and students' accounts of their learning through the program. Here, we note evidence that the program both engaged students in reflection on the actual and desirable qualities in relations and behaviour, and led to transformations of their behaviour in a range of ways. We then explore the action learning process and in particular two responses developed by the cluster in response to the case studies. Firstly we examine the teaching and learning involved in the program more intimately through fine grained accounts of three 'moments' in the program: the preparation of the student 'peer leaders' to conduct a group session addressing the care of the self, the conduct of their session by one pair of group leaders, and the immediate follow-up to one such session. These vignettes developed on the basis of our observations and in collaboration with teachers from the cluster, highlight aspects of quality teaching in the preparation of the student leaders. They also demonstrate elements of quality teaching, including the cultivation of communicative capacity, reflection and self-knowledge among the students in the session itself. As a second response from the cluster, we then turn to the issue of tokenism, and explore ways in which teachers in their own classrooms, and school leaders build on the learning taking place in the peer group sessions themselves, to help construct a common language for discussing and shaping values - and the social relations through which they are enacted - across the school community. Finally, we outline a number of implications of the program for teacher education.

Item ID:	2979
Item Type:	Book Chapter (Research - B1)
ISBN:	978-1-921333-00-2
Keywords:	values education; curriculum theory
Additional Information:
Date Deposited:	17 Nov 2009 04:23
FoR Codes:	13 EDUCATION > 1302 Curriculum and Pedagogy > 130202 Curriculum and Pedagogy Theory and Development @ 50% 13 EDUCATION > 1301 Education Systems > 130106 Secondary Education @ 50%
SEO Codes:	93 EDUCATION AND TRAINING > 9305 Education and Training Systems > 930501 Education and Training Systems Policies and Development @ 51% 93 EDUCATION AND TRAINING > 9399 Other Education and Training > 939999 Education and Training not elsewhere classified @ 49%
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