The topic of teaching morals in a classroom can be quite touchy. Everyone gathers their moral basis from somewhere, and for me my morals come from my Christian up-bringing and my faith. Due to the separation of church and state, public school have to be very careful stating its rules and regulations with morals in the classroom, because most relate morals with religion. And in every teacher handbook there is a thick section solely addressing the issue of religion and curriculum and religious-related activities and practices. The Shoreline School District states the rules in its OPSI website:
“The board recognizes the role that religion has played in the various societies of the world…Religious beliefs and disbeliefs are the matters of personal consideration rather than of government authority. Therefore, the school district must be neutral in matters of religion, neither opposing nor promoting religion in general or any particular religion. History, sociology, literature, the arts, and other disciplines taught in school may have a religious dimension. Study of these disciplines, including the religious dimension, shall give neither preferential nor disparaging treatment to any single religion or to religion in general and must not be introduced or utilized for devotional purposes.”
The idea of teaching “moral education” in classroom curriculum does create some interesting and poignant questions. The idea of teaching anything that is not fact can be tricky. Although having a moral basis where the virtues are respect, responsibility, wisdom, honesty, and self-discipline is a positive goal who teaching them and how do they go about doing it? One argument is that teachers, when teaching morals in a classroom, can be indoctrinating students. This can be seen by giving candy as reinforcement for good behavior. Some believe that candy is buying students into doing what they are told to do. Others believe that it is a positive way to get young children in the habit of doing the right thing. Some argue that helping students understand between right and wrong behavior, without “bonus bucks” or “gold stars”, will have children who do the right thing for the right reason–not for personal gain.
Education has three main jobs, “to (1) develop good people; to (2) form civil, caring, and purposeful schools; and for (3) building moral society to promote individual and collective excellence and overcome threat to social wellbeing” (Scheuerman lecture). With this in mind, education is about helping students find create their moral basis individually, without indoctrination, so they can become healthy, wealthy, and wise active citizens in our diverse world.
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