Students must be aware of the meaning of a decision and a value before they can be expected to make an intelligent choice on their own. These choices, once made, do not produce the same consequences in students lives though they may carry equal weight in their minds. They may not have realized at the time, perhaps, that cutting a class might have lost them the credit necessary to graduate, and that failing to graduate lost them the opportunity of a certain job, and so on. The job, of course, must be something that is wanted by the student, which is where values enter the picture. A value is something that means something to the person, an idea, a belief, or a rule that motivates him or her.
Values differ between people.
A value may have an enormous impact on you, but the same value may have little effect on someone else. Values involve what is most and least dear to you. Students should be encouraged to think about the source or origins of their values, once those values have been articulated. They should also be made aware that their values may change as they mature and grow older, or that they vary according to the people with whom they associate. Values and decisions affect one another.