The article examines the Australian national program of values education via the lens of Deleuze's philosophy. It argues that it is teachers with a genuine level of self-knowledge who can create the conditions conducive to best practice in schools. Both theoretically and empirically, quality teaching has demonstrated the power of the affective dimension exceeding cognitive knowledge of facts alone. Through an experiential approach to self-formation, we understand that values are implicit in practical life and that our knowledge of them--the core of values-education--lies in the ability to participate in the unfolding experiences.