Value Education through Indian Epics: A Pedagogical Framework

Abstract

Since the early times, Indian myths, stories, and possessions have been serving as an impeccable medium to imprint the young minds with moral, ethical, social, and cultural values of the society. This paper introduces a pedagogical framework for inculcating values through value education by utilizing the immense treasure of Indian epics. An English teacher was tasked with providing value education to 11 and 12-grade students of Trad Academy Sr. Sec. School, Rishikesh, India. Through a lecture-cum-discussion method, two chapters per week, for one year, the teacher successfully imparted values of friendship, charity, truth, obedience, and the equality of the woman in the family and society, by relating these to four Indian epics: ‘The Ramayana’, ‘The Mahabharata’, ‘Shakuntala’, and ‘Savitri’ (Ferrer, 2018). Successful implementation despite various challenges prompted the conceptualization of the developed strategy, as shown in the paper. The paper covered the justification, methodology, the robust and holistic pedagogical framework, tip and instructions regarding its application, impact assessment parameters, content scope, suggestion to make lesson more effective, and some theoretical discussion.