Towards effective teaching of “values” in Nigerian schools

Youths constitute a very important segment of Nigerian society yet their social life is currently replete with moral faults: dishonesty, use of scanty and semi-naked wears, ethnicity, sexual promiscuity, fraud, nepotism, abuse of office, drug abuse, financial misappropriation, rape, armed robbery, abortion, selfism, avarice, hired assassination, oil bunkering and examination malpractices. The paper therefore explores the various strategies a Social Studies teacher can employ in the teaching of “values”. Teaching is an attempt to effect certain desirable changes in human learning and teachers have a definite positive and active role to perform as regards the child learning so as to enable him to attain socially-approved goals in the most efficient manner. The paper looks at “value” in its various dimensions and proffers some strategies for teaching it in Social Studies classrooms. “Value” is a specific item that people stand for, believe in or deem important. It is a quality of an object that satisfies our desire of the subject. There are general values, personal values and group values. Values are viev/ed from the angle of social phenomena which impinge upon and determine human behaviour in society. The paper suggests that a Social Studies teacher should make use of biographies of great men, instructional games, role playing and citations from the statutes to teach values and prescribe sanctions for deviant acts. It recommends that Civic Education be capitalized upon as a necessary curricular instrument for helping and building effective learners who would constitute the basis for establishing a sustainable democracy in Nigeria and more importantly students should be encouraged to form civic clubs in their schools. This would help in the inculcation of civic values