Teacher preparation in times of crisis and change: From values education to “You Only Live Once”

In meeting the needs of a fast-growing world especially in times of crisis and change, values education has always appeared as a significant educational agenda. As one of the keys for successfully nurturing students with positive values is to first nurture the teachers, this reported study made an attempt at exploring the possible influence of using narrative pedagogy in developing values among student teachers. This chapter reports about how values education can be promoted in a non-traditional way in a course titled “You Only Live Once” in a teacher preparatory university in Hong Kong. In the course implementation, student teachers were guided to use storying to reflect upon personal values, construct action plans, and present values they regard as significant in story forms through the production of micro-films. The outcomes of employing narrative pedagogy in values education were evaluated by examining the students' completed work, formative feedbacks, post-course group interviews, and field notes. Findings indicated that student teachers developed new understandings on personal life experiences and fortified their association with values such as honesty, integrity, courage, perseverance, love, freedom, and respect for others. These values are believed to be useful for student teachers in different ways to handle unforeseeable challenges and would eventually help student teachers to develop personal values when they become teachers themselves. Copyright © 2023 selection and editorial matter, Kevin Wai Ho Yung and Huixuan Xu; individual chapters, the contributors.