Teaching Ethics in Public Schools: Methods and Controversies

Introduction: Ethics and the Role of Schools

We want our children to exhibit ethical behavior, yet it is all too common to see adults engaging in decidedly unethical activities in front of their children. What about the mother who tells her child repeatedly about the importance of honesty, and then switches price stickers on items in a department store in front of her child? What kind of example about honesty is she setting? What about the father who tells his child to treat others with kindness, then lets his child hear him shouting obscenities at a driver he thinks cut him off in traffic? Is this really showing his child the traits he wants his child to exhibit? Then there are more subtle ways of showing our children that ethics do not really matter. Parents normally tell their children to treat others as they would want to be treated, but when a story comes on the evening news about someone who cheated an elderly person out of a large sum of money, parents will often laugh and nod admiringly at the ingenuity of the perpetrator, while at the same time remarking about how horrible it is. Mixed signals, anyone?

We want our children to be upright, ethical citizens, but our actions and reactions show them that we do not necessarily practice what we preach. We also, through our actions, show them that we silently condone unethical behavior and even admire it. Children will do what they are shown more often than what they are told. When they see their parents acting in unethical ways, they are going to think that this behavior is acceptable and that their parents really approve of it, in spite of what their parents say.

Since parents are not reliably teaching their children ethical values, who will? Who is best qualified to impart this knowledge? The first institution that comes to mind is the school system. After all, schools teach our children many things — so why not ethics? There is a growing movement in this direction, and it is becoming more common for schools, even at the elementary level, to include ethics in their curricula. Many people see schools as the best hope of producing upright, ethical citizens. Of course, this movement is not without controversy. There are those who think it is not the place of schools to teach ethics, since ethics is akin to morality, and morality goes hand in hand with religion; those who espouse this viewpoint believe that either the churches or the parents should bear that responsibility. This paper discusses the various methods of teaching ethics to public school students, particularly at the elementary level, and addresses whether ethics can be taught in public schools without crossing into religious territory.

Lagging Ethics in the United States Today

Ethics are important to society. They provide a set of guidelines for behavior that help us all live together more harmoniously. For most of human history, societies have maintained their own particular sets of ethical standards; often, deviation from these standards resulted in severe punishments for those who violated them. In the last several decades in the United States, however, individualism has been superseding ethics as the behavior of choice, especially among young people. There is nothing inherently wrong with individualism — it builds the character and independence that are vital to advancing as a society. However, parents have lately been teaching children that individualism means not only standing up for oneself, but also being concerned about no one but oneself. The self has become the number one priority in America, and the current state of our domestic social situation, with its rampant crime, violence, and selfish behavior, exemplifies the effects this version of individualism is having on our society.

It is not surprising, then, that most middle and high school students say, when asked, that there is no true right and wrong, that morality is subjective, and that the individual alone determines what is right and wrong (Tiatorio). Students today resist the notion that they owe anything to anyone or that they have any obligation to society (Tiatorio). They recognize that wrongs can be done to them, but have a hard time recognizing that they themselves can do wrong (Tiatorio). To a large portion of today's youth, the prevailing belief about morality seems to be that nothing they do can be wrong because they alone determine what is wrong for them (Tiatorio).

Statistics reveal some staggering numbers when it comes to the moral bankruptcy of a large portion of today's youth. A 1989 study among American teenagers showed that over 70% admitted to lying to their parents about school. Furthermore, 48% had signed a parent's name to an absence excuse, and 19% had taken a book from the library without checking it out (Waldfogel). In the same study, only 60% of teenagers said they thought honesty was the best policy, only 65% said that crime did not pay, and 45% said that succeeding in business required some dishonesty (Waldfogel). Clearly, parents and society as a whole are failing today's children when it comes to instilling good ethical values.

Since parents are part of the reason this belief system is being perpetuated, and the churches only reach the percentage of young people who attend and actively engage with what is being taught, it falls primarily to educators to tackle the challenge of teaching ethics. The question is: what is the best way for public school teachers to address the ethics problem among today's youth?

Techniques for Teaching Ethics

Before ethics can be taught to children, there must be some consensus on the desired ethics, or character traits, to be taught.

Most teachers of ethics agree that the foundations of good character include traits such as trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, integrity, fairness, caring, and legal compliance (Madden). These ethical foundations, when instilled in young children, serve as the basis for all future moral decisions they will make. When taken to heart, these foundations can pave the way for even higher traits — such as wisdom and compassion — to emerge in the child as an adult. Those children who have been taught ethics and who grow up to hold positions of power will be more likely to make right use of that power and to do no harm to others in exercising it. An ethical foundation taught to children makes for a better society.

One of the most successful ways of teaching ethics to school children is framing ethics as a game. This approach is easy to implement and can generate insightful classroom discussion. By presenting ethical dilemmas to students and asking them to reach their own conclusions about how each dilemma should be handled, the instructor allows students to start from where they are in their own beliefs (Tiatorio). This immediately puts students at ease and gets them participating; most students want to express an opinion and defend it, while using their own logic to challenge someone else's view (Tiatorio). Though most students believe they have all the answers, they also tend to believe in the right of others to hold differing opinions (Tiatorio). This belief can be used to guide them toward sound ethical conclusions. The Ethical Decision-Making Manual for Helping Professionals provides some excellent ethical dilemmas suitable for classroom discussion.

It is never too soon to start teaching ethics to children. The earlier children begin learning basic ethical concepts, the sooner they will put those concepts into practice; they will also be better equipped to understand more advanced ideas related to those concepts in the higher grades. Young children often make the best ethics students — they are eager to do good things and to please, and will usually make a genuine effort to practice what they are being taught. They are also quick to point out to other children when those children are not following what has been taught, and it is common to hear young students say things like, "You're not being very respectful," or "You're not being honest."

One of the most effective and practical ways of teaching ethics to elementary school children is to create flash cards featuring different ethical dilemmas. These dilemmas should be as simple as possible and appropriate to the grade level being taught. Scenarios such as "What would you do if you saw your best friend stealing pencils from the teacher's desk?" or "The coach has too much to carry — what would you do?" are simple, everyday situations that elementary school students can easily relate to. The answers students give to these questions can serve as a jumping-off point for discussing the appropriate virtues associated with each dilemma, the meanings of those virtues, and how to put them into practice.

Other effective techniques for teaching ethics to elementary school students include viewing and discussing simple films featuring children who make ethical decisions, and having students create posters illustrating ethical concepts to hang on classroom walls. Films can hold children's deep attention, and the dilemmas faced by characters and the ways those dilemmas are resolved make excellent starting points for classroom discussion. Having children make posters is also extremely effective, as it encourages them to think about what ethical concepts mean and how they should be put into action. By displaying these posters on classroom walls, teachers provide a ready reference that children can consult whenever they have questions or need a reminder about the concepts being taught.

Conclusion

Teaching ethics in the public schools is not a new idea, nor is it one without support. Many high-profile individuals have spoken out in recent years on the value of moral education and the duty of public schools to provide it. Former U.S. Secretary of Education William Bennett said that a coherent moral vision needs to be restored to America's schools and that we can "get the values Americans share back in our classrooms." Gary Bauer, former deputy undersecretary for the U.S. Department of Education, said that the teaching of values and ethics in public schools should "be an integral part of the curriculum." Even former President Ronald Reagan said that education is more than teaching young people the skills needed for a job; he said that education is also about "passing on to each new generation the values that serve as the cornerstone of our free democratic society."

Reagan also said that the ability to make moral distinctions between right and wrong is the cornerstone upon which everything else in human society is built. The Ethical Decision-Making Manual for Helping Professionals tells us that it is the moral responsibility of those in the helping professions to guide young people in making ethical decisions.

When it comes right down to it, ethics can best be described as the ability to make moral distinctions between right and wrong. Everything else — honesty, respect, responsibility, tolerance — is based on this one premise. What a person views as right and wrong will color that person's view of life and influence the choices that individual makes every day, and the choices made by one person can affect many others, either positively or negatively. Many young people are not being taught at home to make positive moral choices, and this is having an impact on society as a whole. It is now the responsibility of schools to teach universally accepted virtues and the most commonly accepted ways of applying them. When students gain a sense of community and absorb the idea that being part of a community means adhering to certain moral principles, the whole of society benefits. When today's children learn ethics, positive changes will begin to happen everywhere.

References

Glazner, Perry. "Can Public Schools Teach Character?" Citizen Link. 1999.

Madden, Kara. "Getting a Grasp on Ethics." The European Advisers Newsletter. 2002.

Steinman, Sarah O., et al. The Ethical Decision-Making Manual for Helping Professionals. Kentucky: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1997.

Tiatorio, Anthony. "What Is Ethics?" Ethics in Education. n.d.

Waldfogel, Dean. "Teaching Ethics in the Public Schools." About.Com. 1994.