Should public schools stick to reading, writing and arithmetic?
Should we teach morals (kindness, respect, tolerance)? Or maybe just rules (no name calling, no pushing)
Is it possible to NOT teach morals, even if you try not to (ex. how to teach about the civil rights movement?)?
What about when there is a controversial issue like abortion, homosexuality, or birth control?
How much of a say should parents have in what their children are taught about these issues?
Schools should not teach morals in general. Certainly they can help teach proper public behavior (don’t fight, don’t cheat) that everyone can agree upon and perpares our youth to be at least passable citizens. However, once you start straying into the realms of birth control, pre-marital sex, homosexuality and so on you’ll never get a consensus on what should be taught.
I will say that I think schools should teach philosophy. Not so much telling you what is right or wrong but how to frame your questions and decipher the answers you get. In short, critical thinking. Thus a given person should be better prepared to assimilate the moral lessons they should get elsewhere (home, religious institution, friends, etc.) and decide for themselves what makes the most sense for them.
I think it is impossible to not implicitly teach some, and so those that cannot be avoided should be taught explicitly as well. These morals would easily take the form of a class about laws governing social behavior. It would be about as exciting to most kids as any other government class, I’m sure, but otherwise there will be significant resistence to the notion of “teaching secular morality” as I’m sure you can (and, I see, have) imagined.
At least one year of it should be required in tenth or eleventh grade, I agree. I mean, it can’t possibly convince teens they are more than 100% right anyway, and it might actually do them some good 
Intro philosophy courses that focus on the arguments instead of who made them are usually quite interesting for most people. It is the thought of teaching it like a tangential history class that sucks.
Hmmm.
I guess the first question is: Just what do you have in mind when you say “teach”? Ethics textbooks? Tests? Instructional plays? Group discussions?
Are we talking grade school, or what?
Are you assuming that persons who behave in a manner that you (or nearly everyone) calls “immoral” do so because they’ve never been taught that such-and-such is “wrong?”
We already have morals/ethics instruction, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It’s called television. Nearly every episode of nearly every program inevitably takes the form of a little “morality play.” Some of these are quite sophisticated, like the recent “Without A Trace” dealing with the spectrum of moral conflicts arising from the present anti-terrorist campaign.
I suppose asking even grade school students to identify the basic moral conflicts in a given TV episode could be a good thing–in theory. The problem is that clever young minds are always on the lookout for new ammunition to use against whatever rules their parents have imposed on them, and fostering an awareness of life’s moral ambiguity at too early a stage may just make budding con artists better con artists.
Homosexuality? Abortion? Can there be any plausible kind of “moral instruction” in these areas without either attacking or defending specific doctrines of specific religions?
Chastity is no less enmeshed in religion.
One ends up with stuff like “telling the truth is better than lying” or “don’t take other people’s possessions” or “don’t hit somebody without a good reason.” I think the kids already know these maxims.
Schools, and teachers, ought to be living examples of goodness: honesty, fair-dealing, forebearance, kindness, patience, courage, respect. The rules of the school ought to promote these things, and ought to be EXPLAINED in such terms, not merely in practical terms. If students can not be “made moral,” perhaps we can at least impart to some of them the idea of moral goodness itself as something distinct from, and inherently superior to, morally uninformed practicality.
Public schools should not teach “morality.” If they wish to teach about racism and the evolution of the American mindset in that regard, let them teach law. “The law says discrimination by race is wrong. This wan’t always law, but the Supreme Court rules in Brown vs. Board of Education…”
However, beyond the common public compact that is law, all else is, from a public standpoint, subjective and should not be taught as fact in a public school.
What if they teach the law about things like homosexuality? Many state laws forbid sodomy.
Many people (see the thread in the Pit http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=146333) think the schools should actively teach about homosexuality. If so, should it just be taught what the law is, or what it SHOULD be?
What’s wrong, though, with teaching kids it is not okay to lie, steal, or bully one another?
It is impossible to teach without teaching morals.
Everything, from what stories we choose to put in our history books to how many years of math we require is a choice that enforces a specific world-view and moral outlook. There is no way to create a “neutral” education.
Our schools have the obligation to create productive members of society and informed voters. This requires instilling a complexity of thought that cannot be acheived with a “facts only ma’am” approach. We need to provide kids with information and then encourage them to process that information and come up with their own defendable opinion on it. We need to promote debate and origional thought. This can be a bit messy. This can be a bit edgey. But there is no way to create the kind of people that can make informed voting decisions with a purely sterile education.
We discussed this one pretty heavily in my public education law class in school.
It’s important to differentiate what you mean by “teaching morality”. Are you indoctrinating? By that I mean “this is good, this is bad, do this, don’t do this, this is evil, God hates this”, etc. etc. This I don’t go in for, because (1) it indoctrinates kids into an ethical system I may or may not agree with with an uncritical methodology and (2) it’s patronizing to the kids, they resent it, and probably won’t listen to it. Why should they?
What I do agree with is teaching about ethics and morality, approaching ethical and moral systems with a socratic approach and critical thought but without any predetermined answers to the questions. I think it’s very important for kids to examine their own ethical beliefs and behaviors, and to know about various (and sometimes conflicting) ethical philosophies both religious and secular. Telling kids “this is moral and this isn’t” may not be such a good idea, but a discussion of, say, Kant’s categorical imperative and its similarities to the Golden Rule I’m all for.
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Nope, there’s more to life then just those three.
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I do not believe it is possible to entirely divorce morality from any regimented educational program. We’d have to get rid of the grading system since that teaches children that those who work harder do better then others.
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I dislike the way some schools handle such topics. I think they drill into the child’s head what to believe instead of letting them reason things out. For example my neice is concerned whenever she sees someone drinking a beer or having a glass of wine. Because the public school she goes to has drilled into her little head that alcohol is bad. They never bothered teaching her that it is ok in moderation.
I’d have no objections to the school teaching things about homosexuals or how students should behave to one another depending on how they went about doing it. I suppose it all ties in to my biggest peeve regarding education in the United States. I think the schools tend to teach students how to take test instead of helping them learn how to think for themselves. That’s another topic I guess.
Marc
Wow. Me and even sven agree.
Marc
autz:
What it “should” be? Sorry, but that’s a matter of opinion which runs contrary to the fact of what was enacted into law. Even if you think law shouldn’t be taught in public school, it’s darned hard to see law-breaking as a valid thing to teach in public school.
If someone sends their kids to a Jewish religious school, they would have a right to expect a Jewish point of view on matters that are, outside that framework, subjective. If someone sends their kids to a private school run by members of the ACLU, they would have a right to expect a liberal point of view. And if they send their kids to a public school, they have a right to expect the official public point of view…which, if it is at all definable, can only be defined by democratically-enacted law.
In either case, I wasn’t even talking about necessarily making kids recite the state legal code by their graduation. I was merely saying that such moral issues that are appropriate subjects for teaching, e.g., the civil rights movement, have facts of law which enable them to be taught in an objective manner.
Guinastasia:
Because even that might be considered subjective to some degree. Aren’t there matters of situational ethics in which people would find it acceptable to steal? Aren’t there large segments of the population who think it was acceptable for President Clinton to lie because he was being unfairly harangued by a partisan investigator?
Morals are too subjective a thing to be taught as fact in a public school.
Chaim Mattis Keller
I think a better (but not perfect) term for the type of morals that should be taught in public schools would be “civility”- no name calling, no cheating,no cutting in line, no stealing , no fighting,etc. All based on morality, on some level, but none needing to be taught as a “fact”. Most such behaviors are not illegal, although they do violate the common social compact.To teach a child not to cheat doesn’t require a teacher to stand up and state “Cheating is wrong”. All that’s required is to have a rule against it , and consequences for breaking it. Same thing goes for name calling, bullying, line-cutting.
What you’re saying is “because I said so” is a perfectly valid end to a discussion.
This entire debate is irrelevant to anyone who’s ever talked to any child over the age of four for more than 3 seconds. You can’t say ANYTHING to a child that doesn’t elicit the question “Why?”. And “why” demands a response.
“You’ll get a zero on your paper if you cheat.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s against the rules to cheat.”
“Why?”
To explain the rule, you have to explain the reasoning behind the rule. That requires a judgement in AND INSTRUCTION IN values, in morals, in codes of conduct or whatever you want to call it.
I don’t know doreen. Teaching blind obediance to rules without teaching the principles behind the rules seems likely seems likely to either create a docile and compliant population that does not seek to root out injustice (must not invoke Godwin, must not invoke Godwin) or a rebellious people that do not have the tools to deal with situations where there arn’t rules layed out for them. Neither one of those is a good option.
In my perfect world, schools would show a variety of points of view, teach kids to come up with their own opinions, and then explain what is expected of them in the academic setting. For example, if they are learning about lieing, they can look at a few essays on honesty and lack thereof, look at the history of religious and politicals views on lies (for example, some believe that it is okay for a ruler to lie if it is for the good of the people), and read a short story or two where the character tells a lie. Then maybe they can write a small paper on a time that they told a lie, what the consequences were, and what their parents think about honesty. We could have a class discussion about these papers, and look at concepts like “the little white lie” and the like. Finally, I’d outline the school’s policy on honesty and the consequences of not being honest in school.
and oral sex and looking at moose out of airplanes… 
One thing that has really struck me in my first year in a public high school is how many of these children are effectively raising themselves. A shocking number bounce between family members in an endless dance: they don’t even say “I live with” anymore, they say “I’m staying with”. Hell, a third of my class has turned over in the last six weeks. Almost all the meaningful imput these kids get --the people they learn about life from-- is each other. Many of the things that seem axiomatic to people who had an adult really give a shit and pay attention to them are completely unknown to these kids. So I push “morals” in my classroom–I don’t do lectures on morality, but I like to think I “teach” morality when I:
[ul]
[li]Encourage students to contribute to the canned food drive.[/li][li]Act shocked, disappointed and upset when I catch a student cheating, even though in truth I am not suprised at all.[/li][li] Stop a kid in the hall who just stampeded over another student and have them apologize.[/li][li] Interupt students who are loudly gossiping about hurting another student’s feelings and and let them know that I disapprove.[/li][li] Tell a student who refers to something they don’t like as “gay” that “gay” is not an insult and will not be used as one in my classroom.Encourage my kids to participate in the Red Cross Blood Drive.[/li][li] Go to great lenghs to protect each student’s privacy.[/li][li]Publically praise students who participate in charity work.[/li][li] Make students clean up after themselves.[/li]
[/ul]
I can’t imagine, as a teacher, not doing things–not having canned food drives, or letting a big kid run over a little kid in the hall (we are very over crowded) and not saying anything.
Teachers simply can’t be neutral-it dosesn’t work, because the kids are making moral decisions every day, and simply not reacting is condoning. Now, there are areas–such as homosexuality and abortion–where one has to tread with great care. But I still am not gonna let anyone tell me that homework is gay.
Whackamole, about teaching philosophy- I happen to be in tenth grade and I would absolutely love taking philosophy. However, many teachers don’t seem to grasp the concept of actually debating and whatnot…to them, it’s just imparting facts and people for us to memorize so they can collect their paycheck. I’m not saying all teachers are bad, I’m just saying that there are some bad ones, and that many of the teachers wouldn’t really teach philosophy the way you describe it.
I’m not exactly disagreeing with the above quotes, but remember, the discussion is about public school teachers teaching morals, not about parents teaching them. Certainly parents need to explain reasons, teach children to have values and go beyond “because I said so”. But that doesn’t mean the teacher has to go into the rightness or wrongness of cutting in line. A simple “We wait in line”, and some sort of consequence for cutting will do from the teacher. It’s the parent’s job to explain why, because parents may have different explanations based on their own moral values. Perhaps one parent will say we wait in line simply to keep things orderly , while another will explain to the child that he’s not better than anyone else, and therefore he must wait his turn like everyone else. It is not the job of a public school teacher to instruct the child to follow the teacher’s own morals.
In the Pit thread I referenced, almost everyone agrees that tolerance and respect taught in public schools (they agree on nothing else.
What if kids are taught “You can’t tease, taunt, or be mean to ANYONE for ANY REASON. However, you don’t have to like or respect them in your mind. But you do have to be nice.”
Is that enough (focusing on appropriate behavior, not appropriate thoughts and feelings).
Or should morals like repect and tolerance be explicitly taught?