Introduction

This book has the aim of improving education through the promotion of student and teacher wellbeing, while also helping to alleviate some of the issues currently facing schools, teachers, and parents. Some of these reported issues include disengagement, students thinking teachers don’t care, teachers struggling to cope, and many students not being interested in learning. The ‘old’ ways of teaching are not working well anymore for either teachers or students, so it has become a fundamental task to find new ways to cope better with these issues. It is these authors’ hope that improved relationships with teachers, with students, with parents, and with the wider community can eventuate through values education. This book shares strategies that can help to make a difference; however, it does not claim to be the only way that works. It is not a panacea, but it is a contribution, based on long experience, as an addition to what is already being done. It is the hope of the authors that teachers who read this book will find strategies that they are realistically able to try out, and that if they do, these will work for them as well as for other beneficiaries, including parents, the wider community, and businesses.