Teaching of Morals in Public Schools :: Free Essays Online

From the age of five until the time they graduate in their eighteenth year the children of America are compelled to attend school. Everyone agrees that we need compulsory education, but no one really agrees why our children need it. Some, like Jonathan Kozol, feel that the purpose of education is to turn a child into a good person through a series of moral and ethical lessons. The other school of thought is that school is a place for a general education of facts and figures and that morals have no business in the classroom. This is a question of vital importance because, with the vast majority of American youths in public school, it could truly change the face of America. The first twenty years of a human being's life have more to do with making up who they are than genetics and the other fifty-odd years of their life combined. Because of this there is a definite need for children and young adults to have a forum to learn about morals and ethics. In this respect Jonathan Kozol's ideas from The Night is Dark and I am Far from Home are true, but, is the right place for a child to learn ethics a public school of the United States? An individual's moral beliefs are one of the most personal and complex pieces of his/her psyche. One must deal with the question of whether or not they want this nation's youths to all be taught the same morals. If teachers were able to impose their own personal beliefs while teaching history and English, imagine what they could do to impressionable minds while teaching ethics. There is absolutely no way to teach morals objectively. If a teacher were a Christian fundamentalist, could she ( I, like Kozol, use "she" because a majority of elementary teachers are female) help a student make an informed, unbiased decision about abortion? If that teacher had to teach a child to make up his or her own mind, or if that teacher had to tell the student to be pro-choice (the law of the nation) she would be teaching something she didn't believe. The abortion example brings up the question, "Whose morals are we going to teach our youth?" If you allow a class in ethics, whose do you teach? The teacher's, the schoolboard's, or the nation's? Whose ever morals you do teach them would probably be drastically different from what they would come up themselves or what their parents would teach them. Teaching of Morals in Public Schools :: Free Essays Online From the age of five until the time they graduate in their eighteenth year the children of America are compelled to attend school. Everyone agrees that we need compulsory education, but no one really agrees why our children need it. Some, like Jonathan Kozol, feel that the purpose of education is to turn a child into a good person through a series of moral and ethical lessons. The other school of thought is that school is a place for a general education of facts and figures and that morals have no business in the classroom. This is a question of vital importance because, with the vast majority of American youths in public school, it could truly change the face of America. The first twenty years of a human being's life have more to do with making up who they are than genetics and the other fifty-odd years of their life combined. Because of this there is a definite need for children and young adults to have a forum to learn about morals and ethics. In this respect Jonathan Kozol's ideas from The Night is Dark and I am Far from Home are true, but, is the right place for a child to learn ethics a public school of the United States? An individual's moral beliefs are one of the most personal and complex pieces of his/her psyche. One must deal with the question of whether or not they want this nation's youths to all be taught the same morals. If teachers were able to impose their own personal beliefs while teaching history and English, imagine what they could do to impressionable minds while teaching ethics. There is absolutely no way to teach morals objectively. If a teacher were a Christian fundamentalist, could she ( I, like Kozol, use "she" because a majority of elementary teachers are female) help a student make an informed, unbiased decision about abortion? If that teacher had to teach a child to make up his or her own mind, or if that teacher had to tell the student to be pro-choice (the law of the nation) she would be teaching something she didn't believe. The abortion example brings up the question, "Whose morals are we going to teach our youth?" If you allow a class in ethics, whose do you teach? The teacher's, the schoolboard's, or the nation's? Whose ever morals you do teach them would probably be drastically different from what they would come up themselves or what their parents would teach them.