need of moral education essay

Need of Moral Education in Our System of Education

Moral education is the need of the hour. The world today is filled with crime, hatred, and greed. People have forgotten their humanity and are only concerned with themselves. They have lost their sense of right and wrong.

There is no denying the fact that moral education is needed in our society today. With all the negativity that surrounds us, it is more important than ever to instill positive values in our children.

What is Moral Education?

Moral education, in its broadest sense, refers to the intentional efforts that aim to cultivate a sense of ethics and values in individuals. It involves teaching and learning about what is right and what is wrong, shaping behavior, promoting social responsibility, and encouraging respect for others.

When we talk about moral education, we talk about a set of values that guide us in making decisions, interacting with others, and leading our lives. It revolves around virtues such as honesty, integrity, responsibility, respect, kindness, and empathy. It is about developing a strong moral compass that navigates individuals through the complexities of life, enabling them to differentiate between right and wrong.

Why Moral Education?

In a world where values often seem to take a backseat, the need for moral education becomes more significant. It plays a vital role in building character, fostering empathy, and instilling a sense of social responsibility. It acts as a guiding light, leading individuals towards ethical behavior and decisions.

Importance of Moral Education

Moral education holds immense importance in today’s society. It equips individuals with the ability to make moral judgments, to be empathetic, and to live responsibly in society. In schools, it helps create a harmonious environment by encouraging respect and tolerance among students. At home, it aids in the development of sound judgment and good behavior. In society, it helps nurture responsible citizens who contribute positively towards their community.

Moral education acts as a catalyst for personal growth and societal betterment. By fostering good citizens who contribute positively to their surroundings, it indirectly impacts the progress of society. Therefore, it is an integral part of education that cannot be overlooked.

Aims of Moral Education

The primary objectives of moral education revolve around the holistic development of an individual. It aims to:

Purification of Soul

Propagation of moral values.

Moral education serves as a channel for passing down ethical values and principles from one generation to another. It ensures the continuity and preservation of moral values.

Character Building

It molds an individual’s character, encouraging ethical behavior and actions. It promotes virtues such as honesty, integrity, empathy, respect, and kindness.

Moral Training

Healthy moral environment.

By fostering a sense of respect and tolerance, moral education creates a healthy and positive environment, whether at school, home, or society.

The Education System: A Closer Look

While education is primarily associated with academics, there is a growing recognition of the value of moral education.

Focus on Academics: The Current Scenario

While academic skills are essential for professional success, moral values are equally important for leading a meaningful and fulfilling life. The need of the hour is to strike a balance between academics and moral education.

Do We Need Moral Education in School?

Schools play a crucial role in a child’s life. They are not just centers for academic learning but also environments where a child learns about society, relationships, and behavior. The incorporation of moral education in schools is beneficial in many ways.

Benefits of Moral Education

The benefits of moral education extend beyond individual development and have a profound impact on society. It is a significant factor in personal growth and societal development.

Fostering Good Citizens

Good citizenship goes beyond being law-abiding. It involves being respectful, responsible, and active in community activities. Moral education promotes these values, fostering good citizens who contribute positively to their community and society.

Promoting Personal Development

Examples of moral education.

Moral education is a continuous process that can be incorporated into everyday activities and interactions. Examples of moral education can range from classroom activities that encourage teamwork and respect to community service programs that promote social responsibility.

Role-playing scenarios, discussions on ethical dilemmas, and character education lessons are common ways of imparting moral education. These activities not only instill moral values but also provide practical experience, helping students understand the relevance of these values in real-life situations.

Need for Moral Education in Physical Education

Physical Education, often centered around fitness and skill development, presents an excellent opportunity for moral education. Incorporating moral education in physical education can promote values such as teamwork, respect, and sportsmanship.

Team sports provide an excellent platform to instill the value of teamwork. It teaches students to work together towards a common goal, highlighting the importance of cooperation and coordination.

Sportsmanship

Good sportsmanship involves being gracious in victory and defeat. It teaches students to handle success and failure with dignity, a value that is applicable not just in sports but in all aspects of life.

Moral Education in Our Life

The importance of moral education extends beyond the classroom and plays a vital role in our lives. It guides our behavior and decisions, impacting our relationships, our work, and our interaction with society.

In the professional world, moral education promotes honesty, integrity, and responsibility. It encourages ethical work practices and fosters a positive work environment.

In societal interactions, moral education instills a sense of social responsibility. It encourages individuals to contribute positively to society, fostering a sense of community and solidarity.

Why is moral education essential in today’s society?

How can moral education be incorporated in schools.

Moral education can be incorporated into schools through classroom activities, discussions on ethical dilemmas, community service programs, and character education lessons. These activities not only instill moral values but also provide practical experience, helping students understand the relevance of these values in real-life situations.

Why should moral education be part of physical education?

Incorporating moral education in physical education can promote values such as teamwork, respect, and sportsmanship. It teaches students to work together, respect rules, and handle success and failure with dignity.

The focus on moral education underscores the need for a comprehensive education system that balances academics with the inculcation of moral values. As we navigate the complexities of the 21st century, the role of moral education becomes increasingly significant.

In the face of societal challenges and global issues, moral education emerges as an essential component, contributing to individual development and societal betterment. It is, indeed, the call of the hour.

Sherry Lane

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Importance of Moral Education Essay

November 28, 2020 by Son of Ghouse Leave a Comment

In the modern era, when people around the world are civilized, we have an unprecedented boom in technology and science. Consequently, the quality and standard of life of the average person are at an all-time high. Though human history is comparatively newer on this 4.35 billion years old earth, we have managed to successfully hone the forces of nature to not just survive but thrive as a species. This write-up is an essay on importance of moral education essay.

Our ancestors started as hunters and gatherers, but now we are writing complex computer programs to make artificial intelligence carry out our space explorations. When you search for the reasons behind this huge evolution of human development, you can easily conclude that the system of education has made us more capable and competent.

Education is one of the most important processes that help an individual to be enlightened about his or her existence. Education provides us with knowledge in accessible and practical ways that guide future generations. This process provides an individual with skills, habits, beliefs, and values that will help him or her attain a successful and prosperous life.

There are various systems of education in different parts of the world. But no system of education can be complete without students getting proper moral education as a part of their curriculum.

Moral education consists of a set of beliefs and guidance acquired in the philosophical journey of our society. It makes a student well mannered, courteous, vigorous, non-bullying, obedient, and diligent. It guides the behavior, attitudes, and intentions of the students towards others and nature. It helps a person throughout his or her life to decide what is right or what is wrong.

Definition Of Moral Education

Some educational theories suggest that new avenues of the future can only open when the previous generation makes a path for it by staying out of the way. Though adults can take their moral understanding further with their ability of critical thinking that they acquire from systematic education, children require more careful attention as they are easily impressed and influenced. That is why the guidance of past generations and traditions remain very important in the form of moral education.

Moral education is very ambiguous as a term as different cultures, based on where they live and how they live, have a different set of moral values. But one thing that can be agreed upon universally is that moral education intends to shape the idea of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in young minds.

By the term ‘good’, you can assimilate deeds like contributing towards a healthy society, not harming a fellow member of the society, helping others, being civic, and being productive. The term ‘bad’ however refers to any thought or force that opposes the good deeds.

Although the modern education system is very new and still developing, the branch of moral education has been taught to pupils since ancient times. Earlier, the duty of imparting moral lessons used to be carried out by the religious leaders and educators who specialized in uplifting the moral value of the society by both adhering to and reforming the old traditions. In the modern age, especially after the colonization of several parts of the world, moral education has been reinforced by the new age educationists.

In the contemporary world moral education has become more universal in approach. More and more humanitarian aspects like human rights, rights for specially-abled people, women’s rights, animal rights, and rights of other marginalized sections of the society have been included.

This progressive approach towards moral education results in a more harmonious society where students become more inclusive and compassionate towards each other along with being successful individually.

Also Read: Essay on Aatma nirbhar Bharat in English

Essay On Importance Of Moral Education In 150 Words

The purpose of an individual’s education is their all-round development, and not just securing high paying jobs, no matter how much the rat-races of the world may have convinced us otherwise.

The education of an individual can never be complete unless they have learned the lessons of tolerance, compassion, pluralistic values, respect, faith, honesty, and many other great virtues that are essential for an upright social life.

These lessons are acquired from the moral education that kids are imparted through stories, skits, interactions, dialogues,  and discourses, and are expected to come from the elder members of the society.

Moral lessons teach young children about ideas that take them towards the ‘good’ life and help them identify the ‘bad’. A life that is not guided by these lessons can easily go astray, and an individual leading such a life, instead of being useful and productive, turns out to be harmful to society.

Essay On Importance Of Moral Education In 250 Words

For a young student moral lessons are just as important as technical and scientific ones as these help in shaping their entire personality. The word moral comes from the Latin root ‘moris’ which means the code of conduct of a people, and the social adhesive that holds a community together.

Moral lessons teach students the importance of positive virtues like honesty, responsibility, mutual respect, helpfulness, kindness, and generosity, without which no society can ever function. At a personal level, this knowledge is essential for a healthy and meaningful life.

These lessons are also aimed at conveying the vital message that negative qualities like greed, vengeance, hatred, and violence can hinder the functioning of a productive society and can cause immense personal damage to the individual.

Since young minds are easily impressionable and assimilate both positive and negative influences easily, moral lessons are vital in helping them make righteous choices as adults. Moral education makes sure that children grow up to develop a virtuous character and lead a decent life.

History bears witness, whenever a society has deterred from the path of these moral values, calamities have befallen humankind. Had Adolf Hilter been taught the right lessons in tolerance and diversity, the world would have been spared the horrors of the Holocaust and a World War.

A proper system of moral education becomes instrumental in shaping the present and the future of a harmonious society. For the betterment of individuals and the community they live in, imparting the right values to children as students are therefore essential.

Essay On Importance Of Moral Education For Class 7&8

Moral education as a process of learning enables a child to acquire socially acceptable skills that make them a useful resource for society. In the present times, moral education is a necessity, keeping the changing systems of the world in mind.

Moral education should not begin in the confines of a classroom but should start in the comfort and security of a home. Parents should be the first idols of children from whom they learn the basics of moral conduct.

Imparting moral lessons to young kids who have just begun developing their thoughts and are yet to attain individuality is a task of great responsibility. They can only be shaped into righteous human beings if proper care and due guidance are provided.

It is to be remembered, in this relation, that kids learn more from observation and modeling than from lectures and discourses. The kind of environment they develop in and the kind of individuals they find as models play a vital role in shaping them as individuals.

It is, therefore, of utmost importance to make sure that children always find a healthy atmosphere of productivity and righteousness around them, with healthy, meaningful relationships with their parents and other elders.

However, when we allow kids to grow in an atmosphere of immoral conduct, we should only expect them to lead lives bereft of all morality. In such cases, the consequences can be dangerous.

A community whose children, the symbols of its future, develop without proper moral education is doomed to be submerged in the darkness of crimes, immorality, violence, hatred, discrimination, selfishness, and greed.

The benefits of moral education are numerous. Apart from teaching children socially useful values to guide their everyday life, an efficient system of moral education imparts lessons of cooperation. As a value, cooperation is not just vital to an individual’s everyday life, but also for the survival of human society.

There can be no future for human civilization if this value is left out of children’s education as we, as a society, need each other to survive. Morals of respect, love, compassion, kindness, forgiveness, and honesty help in imbibing this essential value among kids early on in life.

Moral education also helps in teaching children values of responsibility and independence which is otherwise difficult to make them learn. An effective curriculum of moral education would help children build a positive approach to difficult situations, and make them self confident. It helps children in realizing their purpose in life, their motivations, and goals, and make them dedicated to the cause of social well being.

Moral education is the only hope of humanity in the process of eradicating social evils like gender discrimination, animal abuse, oppression, violence, racial discrimination, and violence against minorities.

In order to create a better tomorrow and ascertain the continuation of human civilization, imparting moral education to children is a must. As an integral part of education as a whole, moral lessons should be focussed on, making sure that children receive an all-round education that enhances their personality.

Relevance Of Moral Education During The Present times

The present world is ever-changing. With the advent of technology and globalization, changes in family structure, the evolution of the education systems, changes in patterns of recreation, emergence of the ‘virtual’ world, and variations in the interpersonal relationships, children’s lives, thought patterns, and learning needs have undergone tremendous changes. Under these circumstances, the need and relevance of moral education have also changed.

With the virtual world casting a lasting impression on children, they have now become a lot more vulnerable to negative influences. Misuse of technology nowadays leads many young children and teenagers astray.

The damage caused in many cases is beyond repair. The distortions in the nature of human relationships and their consequences are having lasting impacts on young minds.

Under these changed circumstances, moral education has to assume a changed, and probably more important role. Due to the changes in most major spheres of life, moral values have also suffered major distortions.

Greed, violence, discrimination, and jealousy are becoming common among people. With social media, hatred spreads like wildfire. Values like honesty and generosity are only found in textbooks these days and their practical implications are becoming a rare sight.

Moral education is the only way in which the situation can be expected to improve. Proper moral education in classrooms and at home can help in boosting the morale of the students. But these lessons have to be provided in a more time-adjusted way to suit the need of the hour.

Making proper use of technology, a more visual and engaging curriculum can be drafted to engage the students in a practical and life-like manner.

Including moral education in school curriculums and adding extra weightage to these lessons is, therefore, a vital step to take in this direction.

As a society, the value of moral education is immense for us. If we are to produce sensible, kind, generous, responsible, and sensitized individuals to lead the future, moral education cannot be left out. In fact, our very existence as a civilization stands on how morally righteous and upright our future generations are.

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The Necessity of Moral Education in the Modern Age

• By Emily Summers
• December 12, 2019

A professor once told me that no matter how good a person was at math, science, literature, or art, if they didn’t have the right set of morals to back it up when they finally put their talents to use. After all, history has seen a lot of intelligent people do terrible things in the name of ideas and beliefs that go against most of humanity’s morals.

It’s why I, as an educational instructor, belief that instead of just mentioning values in passing of our lessons, it’s just as necessary to include moral education into our lesson plans – or even an entire class of itself.

Moral Education vs. Character Education

The question is: whose morals, public vs. private schools, there’s power in discussion, what is moral education.

Morals aren’t born into a person – they’re nurtured. If we’re looking at the human mind through a Freudian perspective , we our born with our human survival instincts in our id taking over. But as we grow older, we develop a superego, a part of our mind that deals in developing a conscience based on the values, morals, and practices we are taught or learn to adapt to. The mixture of these two is the product of our ego, or the part of our mind that we show to others through the way we act.

As young children, we learn from our parents, guardians, and environment what is right and what isn’t. However, theorists believe that if adults did not try to influence how their children would behave, their kids would still be capable of developing their own morals. Of course, this is impossible to do, which is why schools have most (if not all) schools have begun instilling moral virtues within its students through the lessons the school teaches.

Moral education refers to the way a school helps its students learn virtues or moral habits that will make them better people outside of the four walls of their classroom. It can be simply by mentioning good habits and virtues (for example, a science teacher can mention why elderly people need extra help from others or a math teacher promoting the idea of sharing their food with others even if it means less for themselves) in passing, or it can even be a class on its own.

In my research, I’ve found that other countries have actual classes dedicated to teaching students good manners . Such is the importance of morals not just to make students better people, but to also improve the way a community interacts with each other.

You might have heard another term used in similar discussions: character education. Character education refers to the way children are taught to behave in a socially acceptable way. This dates back to the early ‘80s when it was believed a child’s character could be influenced within their school.

You could say that moral education is a form of character education. However, moral education declined in schools because it was considered unnecessary and had a religious connotation with the word “moral.” But I think the main problem was not the religious connotation in a non-secular setting, but rather the type of morals students were trained to have.

Or rather, who gets a say at what the morals that should be taught in schools? Because if you’ll notice the way the world works nowadays, you’ll realize that there are clashing sets of morals. And if everyone has a different set of morals, whose do we pick to teach our students?

For example, you might have heard a grown-up teach you this when you were young: the act of sharing. It’s a fairly simple concept, one you even see in religions telling you to be kind and love your neighbors. If you have food and you see someone who has none, the good thing to do would be to give some of your food even if it means less food. It’s fairly straightforward, until you realize that other people may not see it that way.

Recently, I’ve read a post of parents who teach their children the opposite, but not in the sense that they become selfish, but in the sense that they stand their ground and not be pushed around to share when they don’t want to. For example, I once read a post of a mom who taught her son to say no when people wanted him to share his belongings even if he himself didn’t want to. She claimed it was a way of teaching him the importance of consent and not bending over backwards to please others. Other parents who value the importance of sharing might consider this action selfish, but this mother and other parents like her who value consent and honesty would think the other group of parents were teaching their children to be weak-willed and people-pleasing.

So, in the case of these two groups, you have a teacher in the middle who has to decide which set of morals will he or she teach to her class. And it’s important that the teacher chooses carefully, because the morals their student picks up will eventually be the traits they carry with them outside of their classroom.

Perhaps one of the reasons why moral education isn’t as deep into our educational system as it can be is because of the rules imposed on public and private schools. While private schools are required to adhere to a curriculum and standard quality of education, they are allowed to impose things like religious practices and choose the type of students they admit because they do not receive funding from the government. As such, they are allowed to impose teachings that lean towards their beliefs as long as it does not go against the rules of the Department of Education.

So, if the owner of a school were to be Catholic and have conservative-leaning ideologies, it would be in their right to require students to attend mass and hold events that are slightly more conservative. Parents who are of a different religion and with liberal ideas can enroll their children into that school, but they should be aware that their child will be exposed to ideas that go against their own and may be required to participate in it. This is because if the parents do not agree with the school’s teachings, they are free to send their children to another school that suits their tastes.

Public schools, on the other hand, do not have the same flexibilities as private schools. Because they receive government funding, public schools must accept all students who enroll. This means catering to all students regardless of background, race, and religion. So, to avoid offending other religions, religion isn’t taught in public schools except in terms of history, culture, or literature. Teachers who try to indoctrinate their students to a certain political belief or religion can be removed from their positions.

And when you think about it, religions and politics come with their own set of morals. Catholicism and Buddhism, for example, have different views on certain topics, while left-wing and right-wing ideologies have different ideas on how the way should work. And because we’re not supposed to pin one over the other, we’re left with trying to explain morals to a good chunk of the student population without dragging politics and religion into it.

That’s not to say that morals are exclusively linked to religion or politics, though. But the point is that there are plenty of clashing morals just as there are clashing religions and political leanings. What one party thinks is good and generous, another thinks is weak and lazy. Or what one person thinks is kind and caring, another mocks it as self-serving.

But the point of this article is not to dissuade conflict, but rather to welcome discussion on morals. Earlier, I posed the question of whose set of morals it is we teach our students. While I believe everyone is entitled to their own answer, I believe the right one is this: we teach them everyone’s values. We allow our students to share their own values and perspectives on a certain situation and then allow conducive discussion in the classroom on whether everyone agrees or disagrees. Not everyone will share the same consensus, and we can use that disagreement to consider alternatives to the way we think.

And that’s why I think moral education is important. Not because we train our students to think a certain way and hold the same set of values, but to teach them why other people think differently and what position they’re coming from.

A lot of people will not agree about what moral education should be, and I think that’s part of why it works. Having a class where students talk about the different morals and virtues allows them to see other takes and perspectives on certain topics and allows them to react in a controlled environment. Nowadays, a lot of people will find it hard to talk to a person with opposing beliefs, but having moral education that allows for discussion of all types of moral values can open the doors for better socialization and understanding from all sides.

About the Author

Emily summers.

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The Importance of Moral Education in Developing a Just Society

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Published: Mar 16, 2024

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Table of contents

The development of moral education, the role of moral education in character development, the importance of empathy and compassion in moral education, the contribution of moral education to a just society.

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Defining Moral Education

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What might a moral education worthy of the name actually look like? While we cannot answer all of the questions, nor confront the full dimensions of the moral education debate, we can outline some key features of moral education in our own time and place. What follows reflects our own conversations and disagreements and reveals both the common ground we have come to occupy and the divergent commitments we continue to bring to the moral education debate.

The question is not whether colleges and universities should pursue moral education, but how. Moral (or perhaps immoral) education goes on constantly, if not always self-consciously. Aristotle captured this insight when he argued that every association has a moral end, a hierarchy of values, which is cultivated through its everyday norms and practices. Colleges and universities, too, have such moral ends and purposes, expressed not only through institutional mission statements and curriculums but also, and often more powerfully, through the hidden curriculum of everyday campus life. The more these commitments remain unarticulated the less they can be subject to scrutiny and the more ignorant we remain of the ends that animate our actions and lives.

One task for moral education in the modern college or university, then, is to articulate and scrutinize the moral ends of our shared enterprise. Truth seeking, a willingness to think deeply about alternative positions and arguments, to be swayed by evidence and argument, to acknowledge our intellectual debts to others, and to judge others on the quality of their work and not their family background, skin color, or political affiliation: these are a few of the moral commitments central to academic life that we need to articulate and explore. Other moral ends and commitments may be specific to particular institutions. But the task of critical self-reflection and appreciation remains the same, as does the importance that students experience higher education as an enterprise committed to high ideals, thoughtfully pursued.

This suggests a deeper point about moral judgment. It is a commonplace today for students (and faculty) to exclaim ‘‘Who am I to judge?’’ But of course that, too, is a moral judgment. We make normative judgments all the time, so the question again is not whether to make them but on what basis or grounds we do so. If we cannot offer such grounds, then we may be making judgments, or acting, in ways that contradict our most basic moral commitments and ends. A second task for moral education, then, is to challenge moral evasions, whether in the classroom or the streets, and to teach the practical wisdom that enables us to discern and explore the grounds of the judgments we are making.

It is important to recognize that argument and debate play a key role in pursuing both tasks we have outlined so far. Critics of moral education contend that ethics cannot be central to the university’s mission because this would require a substantive moral consensus that is contrary to critical inquiry and academic freedom. Yet these same critics acknowledge that universities pursue intellectual excellence not by deciding in advance which of the competing views of such excellence is right but by continuous argument over what’s true, right, and persuasive, including argument over what the standards should be for good intellectual work. Similarly, argument about and over ethics, and about the ethical ideals and norms we should teach and promote, is not inimical to, but actually helps constitute, the pursuit of moral education.

Indeed, arguing over what’s right, fair, and just is one of the central ways in which human beings “do ethics.” This reaches across cultures and religions, from traditions of ethical argument expressed in Talmud, in the Islamic ulama, or in the common law, as well as in fundamental moral confrontations such as those between Socrates and Thrasymachus in Plato’s Republic. We enact new forms of this tradition when we invite students to engage debates and controversies, asking them, for instance, to argue for or against human rights, stem cell research, or the International Criminal Court, or to assess different interpretations of Antigone, or weigh alternative approaches to educational policy.

But rigor and argument are not enough. Ethics cannot be reduced to analytical argument but needs to be attentive to the broader variety and complexity of moral life. Argument alone does not capture the moral insights of great literature, nor does it yield the lessons present in a work like Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem. Arendt argues that Eichmann was thoughtless; that he was unable to put himself in another person’s shoes. What Eichmann lacked was moral imagination, which in Arendt’s terms requires the ability and willingness to go visiting another. You do not move in with them, or stand in their place, but next to them. The prominence of the Golden Rule in so many moral and religious traditions points to the centrality of moral reciprocity and the qualities of curiosity, compassion, and imagination it requires. The cultivation of a capacious moral imagination is a third task for moral education.

But ethics is more than a set of questions to debate or even of imaginative perspectives to adopt. To take ethics seriously requires us not only to engage in ethical critique and debate but to come to moral judgments, to take a stand. If cultivation of the capacity for ethical commitment is a fourth task of moral education, then we need to focus on the interplay of principles and actions, both for our students and ourselves. But what constitutes a moral commitment? The great moral teachers have generally insisted on certain truths of moral life. Socrates, for instance, professed that it is better to suffer injustice than to commit it, that virtue is knowledge, and that what you do to others you do to yourself. But justice, knowledge, and truth did not function as ‘‘shut up words’’ because he was also willing to acknowledge that the truths for which he was willing to die might be shown to be faulty in the next dialogic encounter; that he might have missed something in the world or the argument that would force him to modify what he had come to believe with such conviction. Socrates is a valuable exemplar because he showed what it means to combine a capacity to be self-critical with a willingness to affirm moral commitments and stand up for them. It is by navigating that tension ourselves that we can do our best as teachers of ethics.

What are the implications of these four tasks for how we should teach ethics in colleges and universities today? We applaud the pedagogical pluralism that characterizes the return to ethics and see a valuable role for a variety of curricular and co-curricular approaches, from the interpretation of canonical texts and popular culture to case studies to service-learning to student-run honor codes. An appreciation for the role of ethical reflection, deliberation, imagination, and practice is both a key contemporary insight and a welcome revival of cultures and traditions of ethical argument such as those expressed in the Talmud.

A plurality of approaches does not, however, imply that any pedagogical technique is as good as any other in achieving each of the aims of moral education. Different pedagogies have particular strengths and characteristic weaknesses. Take, for example, the conventional ‘‘Introduction to Moral Philosophy’’ course. It has the great advantage of providing students with systematic frameworks for assessing moral judgments. But its focus on critique can leave students with a dizzying and potentially demoralizing sense that there are no defensible moral positions, or that ethics has to do with canonical debates but not with their own lives. Conversely, the case study method, or a conventional service-learning course, will expose students to a variety of powerful practical moral issues and dilemmas, from questions of personal motivation and virtue to issues of organizational ethics, politics, and policy. All too often, however, such courses can leave students floundering in aimless exchanges of personal opinion without providing them with ways to organize and assess their judgments. What’s needed are integrated approaches that combine theory and practice, imagination and justification.

We also believe that moral education -- whether in a philosophy classroom, a judicial affairs hearing room, or a sociology service-learning class — should be dialogical, by which we mean that there should be a degree of reciprocity between students and teachers, a sense of shared vulnerability in the pursuit of an ethical life. This does not mean that every view is entitled to an equal hearing: students have to make arguments, offer evidence, show they are listening to others and reading the texts with care. But without such reciprocity the enterprise of moral education lacks vigor and seriousness. The centrality of dialogue to moral education in democracies acknowledges the degree to which ethical life is necessarily collective and enhances moral imagination by enabling student and teacher alike to see the world from one another’s point of view.

This emphasis on taking a dialogical, rather than didactic, approach to moral education does not mean that universities, or individual faculty, cannot profess moral commitments. The vexed issue of whether teachers of ethics should reveal their own moral commitments to students or adopt a neutral stance to moral questions seems to us wrongly posed. For one thing, genuine moral neutrality is both devilishly difficult to achieve and counterproductive for moral education: what, after all, are students likely to learn about moral stances from someone who claims that, for the purposes of the classroom, he or she has none? At the same time, a general expectation that one will confess one’s moral commitments is hardly more attractive (for one thing, it is likely to leave out those deepest convictions that cannot be easily articulated, since most of us remain to some degree mysteries to ourselves). The issue seems to us to be primarily pedagogic: what creates a classroom atmosphere in which students are encouraged to think deeply, to pose tough questions, and to vigorously disagree with the teacher and with their fellow students? We suspect that respect and humility, humor and friendship, curiosity and collaboration play key roles in creating such a classroom.

This brings us, finally, to the question of what makes someone a good teacher of ethics. Here, we are inclined to believe that there is an important relationship between who we are, what we teach, and how we teach it. In other words, both the character of the teacher and the performative dimensions of his or her teaching are central rather than marginal aspects of moral education. We all have colleagues who teach in a way that undermines the arguments they make, as when a teacher of democratic education teaches in a thoroughly authoritarian way. But unlike Tolstoy’s quip about happy families all being alike, we suspect there is no single model of excellence among teachers of ethics but rather a cluster of traits that good teachers of ethics exhibit to varying degrees. We are unsure, however, if these traits can be taught as a pedagogic practice, or if they are fundamentally idiosyncratic. But these questions, however difficult, must remain central to any debate about moral education.

In the end, the value of today’s return to ethics will rest on whether it serves to reveal important questions and possibilities that have otherwise been ignored or have gone unrecognized. On this score, it appears to have had some success, for it has made us more aware of how moral teaching and learning occur and has revived the perennial question of what the aims of moral education, and indeed of all education, should be.

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We don’t need no (moral) education? Five things you should learn about ethics

Lecturer in Philosophy, Deakin University

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Patrick Stokes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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The human animal takes a remarkably long time to reach maturity. And we cram a lot of learning into that time, as well we should: the list of things we need to know by the time we hit adulthood in order to thrive – personally, economically, socially, politically – is enormous.

But what about ethical thriving? Do we need to be taught moral philosophy alongside the three Rs?

Ethics has now been introduced into New South Wales primary schools as an alternative to religious instruction, but the idea of moral philosophy as a core part of compulsory education seems unlikely to get much traction any time soon. To many ears, the phrase “moral education” has a whiff of something distastefully Victorian (the era, not the state). It suggests indoctrination into an unquestioned set of norms and principles – and in the world we find ourselves in now, there is no such set we can all agree on.

Besides, in an already crowded curriculum, do we really have time for moral philosophy? After all, most people manage to lead pretty decent lives without knowing their Sidgewick from their Scanlon or being able to spot a rule utilitarian from 50 yards.

But intractable moral problems don’t go away just because we no longer agree how to deal with them. And as recent discussions on this site help to illustrate, new problems are always arising that, one way or another, we have to deal with. As individuals and as participants in the public space, we simply can’t get out of having to think about issues of right and wrong.

Yet spend time hanging around the comments section of any news story with an ethical dimension to it (and that’s most of them), and it quickly becomes apparent that most people just aren’t familiar with the methods and frameworks of ethical reasoning that have been developed over the last two and a half thousand years. We have the tools, but we’re not equipping people with them.

So, what sort of things should we be teaching if we wanted to foster “ethical literacy”? What would count as a decent grounding in moral philosophy for the average citizen of contemporary, pluralistic societies?

What follows is in no way meant to be definitive. It’s not based on any sort of serious empirical data around people’s familiarity with ethical issues. It’s a just tentative stab (wait, can you stab tentatively?) at a list of things people should ideally know about ethics, and based, on what I see in the classroom and, online, often don’t.

1. Ethics and morality are (basically) the same thing

Many people bristle at the word “morality” but are quite comfortable using the term “ethical”, and insist there’s some crucial difference between the two. For instance, some people say ethics are about external, socially imposed norms, while morality is about individual conscience. Others say ethics is concrete and practical while morality is more abstract, or is somehow linked to religion.

Out on the value theory front lines, however, there’s no clear agreed distinction, and most philosophers use the two terms more or less interchangeably. And let’s face it: if even professional philosophers refuse to make a distinction, there probably isn’t one there to be made.

2. Morality isn’t (necessarily) subjective

Every philosophy teacher probably knows the dismay of reading a decent ethics essay, only to then be told in the final paragraph that, “Of course, morality is subjective so there is no real answer”. So what have the last three pages been about then?

There seems to be a widespread assumption that the very fact that people disagree about right and wrong means there is no real fact of the matter, just individual preferences. We use the expression “value judgment” in a way that implies such judgments are fundamentally subjective.

Sure, ethical subjectivism is a perfectly respectable position with a long pedigree. But it’s not the only game in town, and it doesn’t win by default simply because we haven’t settled all moral problems. Nor does ethics lose its grip on us even if we take ourselves to be living in a universe devoid of intrinsic moral value. We can’t simply stop caring about how we should act; even subjectivists don’t suddenly turn into monsters.

3. “You shouldn’t impose your morality on others” is itself a moral position.

You hear this all the time, but you can probably spot the fallacy here pretty quickly: that “shouldn’t” there is itself a moral “shouldn’t” (rather than a prudential or social “shouldn’t,” like “you shouldn’t tease bears” or “you shouldn’t swear at the Queen”). Telling other people it’s morally wrong to tell other people what’s morally wrong looks obviously flawed – so why do otherwise bright, thoughtful people still do it?

Possibly because what the speaker is assuming here is that “morality” is a domain of personal beliefs (“morals”) which we can set aside while continuing to discuss issues of how we should treat each other. In effect, the speaker is imposing one particular moral framework – liberalism – without realising it.

4. “Natural” doesn’t necessarily mean “right”

This is an easy trap to fall into. Something’s being “natural” (if it even is) doesn’t tell us that it’s actually good. Selfishness might turn out to be natural, for instance, but that doesn’t mean it’s right to be selfish.

This gets a bit more complicated when you factor in ethical naturalism or Natural Law theory , because philosophers are awful people and really don’t want to make things easy for you.

5. The big three: Consequentialism, Deontology, Virtue Ethics

There’s several different ethical frameworks that moral philosophers use, but some familiarity with the three main ones – consequentialism (what’s right and wrong depends upon consequences); deontology (actions are right or wrong in themselves); and virtue ethics (act in accordance with the virtues characteristic of a good person ) – is incredibly useful.

Why? Because they each manage to focus our attention on different, morally relevant features of a situation, features that we might otherwise miss.

So, that’s my tentative stab (still sounds wrong!). Do let me know in the comments what you’d add or take out.

This is part of a series on public morality in 21st century Australia. We’ll be publishing regular articles on morality on The Conversation in the coming weeks.

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Essay on Importance of Moral Education For Students

In today’s society, morality and etiquette are both subjective and often defined by the individual. In this article, we will discuss some of the major perspectives on moral education for students.

Table of Contents

The Importance of Moral Education Essay for Students

Moral education is essential for students to have in order to create good, ethical citizens. It teaches students about right and wrong, values, and the responsibilities that come with having those values. It also helps students make informed decisions and handle difficult situations.

Moral education should start early in a student’s life. Many people believe that moral education starts with kindergarten or preschool, when children are still developing their sense of right and wrong. However, moral education can also be taught in high school or college.

There are many benefits to teaching moral education in schools. For one, it helps students develop a strong character. Character is critical in life, and it’s important for students to learn how to build healthy relationships, cope with stress, and handle adversity. Moral education also teaches students how to think critically and solve problems. This skill set is valuable in any field, but is especially important in fields such as law, business, journalism, engineering, and medicine.

Unfortunately, not all schools provide adequate moral education. In fact, according to the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP), only about one-third of U.S. schools offer any type of moral education at all (NASP 2013

How to Increase Moral Education for Students

Moral education is an important part of a child’s development. It teaches them how to make good decisions and behave ethically. It also helps them understand the consequences of their actions.

There are many benefits to moral education for students. They learn to think critically and to be self-aware. They also learn how to cooperate and work together. In addition, they learn how to treat others ethically, which can help them become responsible citizens in the future.

Moral education is important for all students, but it is particularly important for students who are growing up in a time when there are more choices than ever before. Today’s children face difficult decisions every day, and they need guidance in making the right ones. Moral education gives them the skills they need to make well-informed choices, and it helps them develop a sense of responsibility and compassion for others.

Moral education is an important part of any student’s education. It can help them become more responsible, compassionate and ethical individuals who are able to navigate the complexities of life with greater ease. In order to develop these qualities, students need to be exposed to a variety of moral theories and arguments. Moral education should not be limited to religious institutions; it should be available in all schools so that every student can benefit from it.

Hello! Welcome to my Blog StudyParagraphs.co. My name is Angelina. I am a college professor. I love reading writing for kids students. This blog is full with valuable knowledge for all class students. Thank you for reading my articles.

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•    The Importance of Moral Education For Students

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The importance of moral education for students.

• Chloe Daniel
• Published On: March 19 ,2024

We categorize people into good and bad based on their character and mannerisms. But no one is born bad. People grow up to develop the characteristics they watch in their surroundings. Education plays a major role in shaping the personality of someone, and today, the need for moral education is more than ever.

Let’s see what moral education is and why you should teach that to students in an effective way.

What is Moral Education?

The term moral education refers to programs designed to instill in students a sense of good and wrong ideas and principles. Children act, think, and behave in ways that are directed by their ideas toward other people and their surroundings. 

Moreover, moral education builds in children the willingness to behave in a way that is consistent with their values and beliefs. It basically encourages them to consider their behavior and character. 

Let’s Get Into It

According to Freudian theory, our identity takes over during birth, and our survival instincts are shaped as we grow. However, as we get older, a superego—a portion of our mind—develops. 

This superego is responsible for helping us form a conscience based on the morals, values, and behaviors we are exposed to or learn to live with. The combination of these two is the result of our ego, which develops over time.

Early on, our surroundings, parents, and elders educate us on what is and isn't right. That being said, many people theorize that adolescents still form their morality even without the influence of parents. 

That is why the majority of schools have started teaching their students moral values through their curricula.

The Conflict

In the world we live in today, with numerous people and ideologies, there are clashing sets of morals. Everyone follows a different set of principles, so moral education is subjective. This conflict arises due to the intersection of different cultural, societal, and religious perspectives.

One group might have a different idea of what is morally right than another. Teachers who want to teach morals in schools have a hard time dealing with this bias.

Another thing that makes the conflict worse is the ongoing argument about whether moral education should be standardized or changed to fit different cultures. 

Some people want a set of morals that apply to everyone, while others want a way of doing things that takes into account and accepts different cultural points of view. 

To deal with this problem, teachers need to find a middle ground between teaching important principles and creating an atmosphere that supports free speech and respects different moral points of view. 

Basic Moral Values for Students

All the conflicts aside, there are some of the basic moral values that every student should be taught in school. 

• Responsibility
• Cooperation

Some Benefits of Getting Moral Education in School

Let’s sum up the importance of moral education and its benefits for the personality development of students.

1. Character Building

The principles and good qualities that children acquire in their formative years shape their character and personality. It is the first step toward the future.

Schools that teach morals greatly impact how well students build their character. They build a basis for responsible and moral behavior in students by learning virtues like honesty, integrity, and empathy.

2. Social Responsibility

Students who are exposed to moral education learn more about their role in society. They are encouraged to contribute positively to the people around them. 

It also prepares students to be determined to overcome difficult situations in life.

3. Conflict Resolution

Moral education equips students with conflict resolution strategies. Those who learn these skills have greater empathy and understanding in them. 

Moral education instills in students some essential tools for conflict resolution, like dialogue and compromise.

4. Ethical Decision Making

Students benefit from being exposed to moral concepts because it prepares them to make ethical decisions. They gain the ability to evaluate problems from a moral perspective, taking into account how the decisions they make will affect not only themselves but also other people. 

5. Enhanced Communication Skills

By engaging in conversations about ethical issues, students are able to strengthen their ability to communicate effectively. They gain the ability to articulate their opinions, listen to the perspectives of others, and engage in constructive decisions.

6. Long term Wellbeing

When you learn morals, you set yourself up for long-term well-being. People who internalize moral values are more likely to lead happy lives, form meaningful connections with others, and make good contributions to society as a whole.

How Can You Teach Moral Values to Kids?

Teaching moral values to kids is not a simple task. You have to look at different things and maintain your calm while you lead. Here are some tips that you can follow to teach kids about moral education:

• Lead by example: Children learn by observing the behavior of their elders. Demonstrate the values you want to instill in them through your actions and words.
• Open Communication: Encourage children to express their moral dilemmas and questions to you. Create a safe environment for them where they can express themselves freely.
• Storytelling: Share stories, folktales, and fables with children containing moral lessons. These stories are a great way to engage them and provide valuable lessons.
• Encourage Responsibility: Assign age-appropriate responsibilities to children. This develops a sense of accountability in them, and they are better able to look at things from a wider perspective.
• Teach Empathy: Make your kids understand the importance of the feelings of others. Tell them how their actions impact others and how they should be empathetic towards people.
• Choose a Responsible Tutor: Look for a responsible and professional tutoring service. My Tutor Source (MTS) is a global private tutoring company that contains expert tutors. Their teachers are skilled and empathetic towards their students. You can book one for your kids today.

Final Thoughts

Teaching moral education in schools is a great way to make this world a better place. This turns children into kind human beings when they grow up.

Also, when kids learn about good values, they become better at solving problems, making good choices, and being nice to others.

And here's a cool tip – if you're looking for extra help with your child's education, check out My Tutor Source (MTS). They have great tutors who not only know their stuff but also care about your child's learning journey.

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What Is “Moral Education”?

• Open Access
• First Online: 26 October 2021

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• Barry Chazan 2  

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Moral education is one of the most significant arenas of preoccupation of analytic educational philosophy as well as of daily educational practice. Several significant alternative theories of moral education emerged in twentieth century philosophy of education.

It would seem that twenty-first century theory and practice of moral education reflects new realities, challenges, and responses.

This chapter is based on chapter 5 “The Moral Situation “in B. Chazan and Jonas Soltis, editors.( 1973 ). Moral Education . New York: Teachers College Press.

You have full access to this open access chapter,  Download chapter PDF

• The moral situation
• Moral socialization
• Moral thinking
• Moral caring

Moral education is one of the central concerns of philosophy of education. Over the years, it has been described using a variety of terms—“moral education”, “values education”, “ethics and education” and “character education”. Ultimately, these diverse appellations all focus on the question of “What is the role of education in making us moral and good human beings?”

In former times, discussion of the moral and the good was typically related to religious belief and practice and was often regarded as one of the central missions of religious education. The discussion of moral education was to change dramatically in the modern era when morality was no longer necessarily dependent on or a derivative of religious education. Modern discussions do not necessarily—if at all—tie moral and ethical spheres to religion. Rather, they focus on the role of morality in education in general.

The Moral Situation

The discussion of what “moral education” means very much depends on the clarification of a prior question: What are the issues a person faces when he/she is confronted by a moral situation that calls for a decision?

The first component of a moral situation is that it constitutes a moment in which one has to decide between alternative actions regarding what to do or how to behave. However, the need for a decision in itself is not the single determining dimension of being moral since there are many moments in which we have to make choices in matters of taste, interest, or mood that are a part of daily life in modern societies and are issues unrelated to morality (e.g., “Which of Baskin-Robbins’ thirty-one flavors should I choose today?”). Moral decision-making is about having to make a choice between conflicting core values and principles that force us to decide which is the right and wrong thing for us to do. Moral conflicts are generally not between right and wrong but rather between two rights or two wrongs. Heinz has a very sick wife whose life was in danger. There is one drug that can save her; it is sold in only one pharmacy and it is extremely expensive because the pharmacist has devoted many years to developing it. Heinz does not have enough money to pay for the drug nor is he able to recruit funds. Ultimately, he has only two options: (1) to steal the drug and face the consequences or (2) not to steal the drug and potentially be responsible for his wife’s death. What should he do and why? Footnote 1 Moral decisions are about practical situations involving principled beliefs about what is right or wrong good or bad. In former times, priests and other religious authorities told us what to do. In modern life, we confront the situation with no clerical or supernatural dictates, rather, with only our own conscience and self.

Such decision-making is not an abstract discussion of wise philosophers sitting in easy chairs and deliberating for hours, days, months, or a lifetime. Moral decisions are issues that each of us faces every day in the here and now, situations that are central to human life, that are intensely personal, and that require making a choice of following a course of action.

Approaches to Moral Education

The emergence of contemporary public education created a dilemma about the place of moral education in schooling. As indicated, in former times this type of education was in the bailiwick of religion, which prescribed specific choices and actions. The question for a contemporary public education not rooted in specific religious beliefs is whether there is a place for moral education in schools. If the answer is in the affirmative, then we are faced with questions as to the bases on which moral decisions made, what are the goals of moral education in public schooling, and what the roles and responsibilities of teachers might be.

French academic Emile Durkheim is often regarded as the father of the fields of sociology and of modern thinking about moral education. Durkheim, in his numerous writings about morality and education, established a framework that influenced educational thinking and practice for many decades (Durkheim 1961 ).

Durkheim regarded human beings as social animals, meaning that human life originates and exists within social frameworks. There is no existence without society. Consequently, morality is a system of behaviors reflecting what societies regard as “right” or “wrong”. For Durkheim, modern moral education is the activity of transmitting good and right behaviors of a society to its future citizens. He regarded the teacher as a “secularized” priest or prophet charged with the mission—by means of words, demeanor, and actions—of transmitting society’s core values and behaviors. For Durkheim, the teacher is a powerful and essential force in moral education, and, in fact, is much more important than the family. A family is ultimately focused on caring, supporting, and protecting its children, and it will always compromise on moral issues when its own children are involved. Thus, it is the educator who is charged with transmitting moral codes and enforcing moral behaviors in the young.

Durkheim did not prescribe a specific code of ethics—and he indicated that moral codes could change over time—yet he maintained that ethics relates ultimately to behaviors that are for the good of a society. He did acknowledge that it was sometimes necessary to revolt against the practices of a society if its current moral behaviors strayed from societal principles. In such cases, it was both legitimate and indeed a requirement to call a society to order and to chastise it for corrupting its own core principles. Thus, Durkheim did not regard Socrates, the biblical prophets or Jesus as malcontents, but rather as social critics protesting the turpitude and degeneration of Athenian and Israelite societies and pleading with its citizens to return to their fundamental values.

Durkheim believed that teachers should be models of morally correct behavior. Their mission is to transmit the core values of modern secular societies by pedagogy, personality, and public behavior. The teacher’s task is not simply to pass on knowledge verbally, but also to model “the good” and “the right”. At the same time, the teacher must be concerned that the moral sphere does not become mere habit; instead it should be linked to reflection and understanding of core social values. Durkheim indicated that a teacher’s authority must be tempered with benevolence and sensitivity to the frailty of the child and should not lapse into harshness.

The best pedagogic device for developing the social elements of moral education, according to Durkheim, is the utilization of the class as a social group for the nurturing of group pride, comradery, and loyalty. The school class should be the model for behaving according to a society’s highest and most worthy values. Durkheim’s approach to moral education is the first iteration of a secular theory and practice of moral education for contemporary life.

An important—albeit little known—contribution to the discussion of moral education is to be found in the writings of British educationist John Wilson (Wilson et al. 1967 ). Durkheim grounded the origins of moral education in sociology, while Wilson believed that philosophy was the basis of a theory of moral education rooted in moral deliberation and reflection. Wilson regarded moral education as a way of thinking about ethical issues rather than as a procedure for transmitting specific values to students. His emphasis was on individual inquiry and deliberation rather than societal imposition.

Wilson’s model of moral education was based on a thinking process, which encompassed identifying the moral dilemma; verifying the relevant facts and moral issues involved; and applying principles of reasoning and consideration of other people’s interests to enable moral action. This approach regarded the role of schooling to be the nurturing of the philosophic process of moral reasoning.

Wilson did acknowledge that in order to teach the process of deliberation and resolution, a teacher often would need to express a particular moral viewpoint, because to be neutral or passive is to omit one important part of the process of moral reasoning. At the same time, the role of teachers/educators is to teach the multi-dimensional patterns of moral thinking, rather than to serve as exemplars of moral action. Teachers should not model how students should behave but rather how they should model the dynamics of moral reasoning.

The rapid expansion of public schools in late twentieth-century American society led to the need for practical pedagogies and programs for implementing morals and values education in American schools. A group of educators committed to the practice of moral education in schools created an approach called “Values Clarification” (Raths et al. 1963 ). Values Clarification (VC) is rooted in the assumption that there is no clear or accepted set of moral values in contemporary life, and that the moral domain is a matter of personal choice and individual decision-making. Therefore, the VC approach states that teachers should not be allowed to impose their values or their behaviors and that their role in “values education’ is to develop a series of skill sets that would enable the child to become a valuing person. VC believed that classroom teachers could and should help the young focus on moral issues and help them learn how to make their own value decisions. The VC model encompasses a process with seven components: (1) Choosing freely; (2) Choosing from alternatives; (3) Choosing from alternatives after thoughtful consideration of the consequences of each alternative; (4) Valuing the choice; (5) Valuing the choice so much as to be willing to affirm the choice to others; (6) Acting in a certain way to reflect commitment to the choice one made; and (7) Acting repeatedly according to the choice that they made so that it becomes an imbedded form of moral behavior. In VC, the role of schooling in moral education is to train young people to be able to apply the seven stages of the process, rather than to be a “morally-educated person”.

The role of the VC teacher is to create classroom activities and pedagogies focused on developing the seven valuing processes. The VC teacher is a technician who facilitates the development of a series of thinking, feeling, and behavioral skills. Moreover, the VC teacher should not reveal his/her own moral preferences; indeed their personal moral lifestyle is totally irrelevant to their work. They are neither representatives of society nor models of advanced stages of thinking; rather, they are trainers of a set of necessary skill sets.

The VC proponents developed a series of pedagogic exercises, dialogue strategies, role-playing case studies, value sheets, and hundreds of activities falling into three main categories. One set of pedagogic tools focused on the strategy of valuing questions that caused the student to think about moral issues. Another strategy aimed to encourage students to express their own personal values and examine them. A third group of activities created guidelines for group discussion and processing to enable students to hear and react to different perspectives.

The academic world did not treat VC with the respect shown to other university-based moral education programs, probably because it was more shaped by teachers’ practical needs for engaging and compelling classroom materials rather than being rooted in philosophical or psychological models. The pragmatic aspect of VC should not be minimized because any theory of moral education can only truly be useful if it is accompanied by or leads to clear, accessible, and useful practical materials.

Lawrence Kohlberg was the most prominent name in twentieth-century moral education (Kohlberg 1968 , 1981 , 1983 ). A psychologist educated at the University of Chicago, Kohlberg spent his academic career as a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where he devoted his research, educational, and pedagogic interests to the subject of moral education, Kohlberg’s work was rooted in psychology and philosophy, and his focus was on the practice of education. His appeal and commitment to the field of moral education was profound, and he was singular in his quest for the synthesis of theory and practiceֹ.

Kohlberg’s approach to moral education rejected the position that morality was essentially a set of moral norms, while also rejecting the notion that morality was exclusively a matter of individual choice. Kohlberg believed that while individuals are raised and rooted in specific societies, at the same time they must deal with issues that are universal in nature and that extend beyond specific societal borders. Indeed, he regarded the moral sphere as a central domain of being human.

Based on his psychological research, Kohlberg developed a three-levelled classification of “types” or “orientations” of moral judgment. Level One of moral judgment (called the “pre-conventional”) refers to moral thinking and decision-making that is oriented toward (or shaped by) fear of punishment or pain. A person on this level makes moral decisions to avoid physical or other sorts of punishment and/or to satisfy egotistical needs. What is “good” or “right” is whatever prevents a person from getting yelled at or punished, or, conversely, gets them some candy. Level Two, moral reasoning (the “conventional level”) is oriented toward social expectations and behaviors—being a “good boy” or a “good girl” or doing what a good citizen in a particular city, society, or state is expected to do or not do. On this level, decisions are made in terms of adherence to accepted moral conventions. Level Three, moral thinking (the post-conventional), refers to individual decisions oriented to conscience, principles, and to the ultimate value of justice. In Level Three decision-making, we can sometimes be acting in accord with society but, ultimately, we are oriented to transcending societal norms.

These levels are generally assumed to be connected to three commonly accepted sociological stages in our biological development, that is, infancy; school-age; adolescence and emerging young adulthood; and adulthood. However, Kohlberg’s levels of moral development did not necessarily automatically synchronize with the standard model just described. Indeed, there are many adults who are preconventional or infantile in their moral decision-making processes, and there are also adolescents and young adults who are post-conventional or principled in their moral decision-making and development. Another important aspect of Kohlberg’s developmental notion is his belief that once people have reached a higher level of development, it is unlikely that they will regress to a lower level. One who has learned to live a life of principle (with all the complexities involved) will likely find it difficult not to live the principled life consistently.

Kohlberg was committed to the development of a theory as well as to its implementation in schools (and at a certain point he also tested its use in prisons). Kohlberg shared Durkheim’s emphasis on the importance of moral education in schools, although Kohlberg prescribed a much different pedagogy and practice. He shared some of Wilson’s philosophic thinking but was much more psychologically and practically oriented than Wilson. He agreed with VC’s emphasis on practice but rejected most of the other thinking of VC.

Kohlberg worked with a group of educators to create a five-step method for moral dilemma discussion: Step 1: A moral dilemma is read out loud to the class (Kohlberg created a group of approximately 16 dilemmas, indicating that dilemmas could also be selected from ancient texts, literary texts, and contemporary sources). After the reading, the teacher makes sure that the group has understood and agreed upon the main points presented in the dilemma.

Step 2: The teacher raises two questions about the dilemma: (1) What should the person facing the dilemma do? (2) Why? The “why” question is ultimately the central discussion topic for Kohlberg because it reflects the nature of a person’s orientation in terms of moral thinking . Step 3: The class breaks up into small groups to discuss the participants’ reactions. The reason for initially splitting into small groups is to make people feel comfortable to share their thoughts before reassembling. Step 4: A group discussion regarding what the protagonist should do and why. The teacher’s role is to listen, explicate, and, as much as possible, enable the participants to hear patterns that reflect all three levels of moral thinking. This stage is critical in enabling students to at least hear levels of thinking that are higher than theirs. Step 5: The teacher summarizes the entire exercise and, to the extent that there were presentations reflecting the three levels, briefly summarizes the three different ways of thinking. The teacher’s role is to explicate, not propagate views. This discussion section was very important to Kohlberg as he believed that enabling students to hear levels of thinking higher than their own and hopefully to be influenced accordingly. Moreover, it was important to demonstrate that moral deliberation and discussions are not simply empty talking but that issues of morality do, can, and should have solutions. The teacher’s role in the entire process is based on a familiarity with the three levels of thinking, an ability to utilize and model the Socratic method of questioning, a sensitivity to group dynamics, and the ability to summarize without preaching. Kohlberg’s influence was great for several decades in the second half of the twentieth century because it was both rooted in a philosophical and psychological theory of moral thinking and translated into actual educational processes.

Reactions to—and, in some cases, critique of—Kohlberg’s work led to a new late twentieth-century and twenty-first-century school of moral education denoted as “the caring approach” (also referred to as “the feminist approach”) (Larrabee 1993 ). One of the most prominent voices of the caring approach is philosopher of education Nel Noddings, who developed what she called, “a relational approach to ethics and moral education” (Noddings 2007 ). For Noddings, the core of ethics and moral education is not “moral thinking” but rather the human virtue known as “caring” which refers to a trait at the core of human life characterized by concern for the other. This virtue is rooted in the emergence of what it means to be human, which encompasses being able to be a caring person toward others and a person able to be cared for by others. While not a theological model, Noddings’ position reflects the humanistic assumptions of Martin Buber and others who regarded human life as a dialogue in which one learns to appreciate the other, be appreciated by the other, and ultimately develop an authentic interactive human relationship denoted as the “I-thou” (Buber 1958 ). According to this perspective, ethics is about the human virtues of intuitiveness and receptivity, rather than moral principles or reasoning. Noddings’ caring is not a universal moral principle but a core human virtue.

Noddings regards schools as central platforms and frameworks for the development of caring, and her writings pay much attention to the creation of schools and school communities as caring environments. The teacher is one who has chosen a profession rooted in caring and, ultimately, one of whose roles, if not the central role, is to turn the school into a laboratory for developing a caring community.

While the twentieth century was deeply preoccupied with the issue of moral education, there were (and always have been and will be) voices which reject the role of schooling in issues of morality. Here are some famous examples: “My grandmother wanted me to have an education, so she kept me out of school” (Margaret Mead); “Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school. It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education” (Albert Einstein); “What does education often do? It makes a straight-cut ditch of a free and meandering brook (Henry David Thoreau); “It is our American habit, if we find the foundations of our educational structure unsatisfactory, to add another story or wing” (John Dewey); “Knowledge that is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind” (Plato).

The “anti-moral education” tradition is rooted in the notion that by its very nature almost any kind of schooling is a form of indoctrination. This tradition says that schools should only teach topics, subjects, and issues that are based on agreed-upon and established methodologies and facts. As the nature of morality is one of personal preference, moral content cannot be regarded as shared or public knowledge, thus it should not be taught in school.

The epistemological version of this argument says that schools should only teach verifiable and objective bodies of knowledge. So-called “moral knowledge” is neither verifiable nor objective in the same way as the sciences. Education should deal with only publicly verifiable and agreed-upon contents often characterized as scientific or rational.

The individualist argument claims that the individual is the primary unit in life and schools should be concerned with the liberation and autonomy of the individual rather than the promulgation of a particular ethic. It opposes moral education on the grounds that it becomes a means by which the state or some power group—men, colonialists, Caucasians, and other such power groups—imposes their specific value beliefs. Education should be about ownership of self, and children should have the potential to be free choosing agents rather than be manipulated by a church or synagogue, big business, white capitalists, or gender-specific worldviews.

The empirical evaluative critique of moral education is fact-based rather than ideological, stating that there is no valid or reliable empirical data to validate the value of moral education in schools. Its argument is that research shows that schooling is not a very important factor in affecting people’s morality and hence the entire enterprise of implementation in schools is a waste of time and money. Schools should do what they do best, and they should not attempt to undertake an impossible task.

It is indeed legitimate to raise questions about moral education within public education. Are schools the tools of “power brokers” or interest groups or are schools simply incapable of having an impact on the moral sphere? The anti-moral educationists are good souls and not simply ornery troublemakers, and they do bring to our attention the potentially manipulative nature of schools, which may indeed serve the “power brokers” rather than “the powerless”.

Into the Twenty-First Century

Thinking about moral education has taken some new directions in the twenty-first century. The language of “moral education” has seemed to shift to the term “character education” and philosophic thinking has focused on virtues, with less of an emphasis on moral principles and judgments (Zagzebski 1966 ). The entire field of morality has been influenced by new trends in research within developmental psychology, neurology, and sociology that have been generally shaped by the neurosciences. Psychologist Vivian Gopnik indicates “that babies and young children are not the immoral creatures we thought them to be. Even the youngest babies have a striking capacity for empathy and altruism” (Gopnik 2009 ). The emerging field of neuro-education has been described as “the hot new area in education” (Klemm 1996 ).

Thinking about morality and education in the twenty-first century has also been shaped by a painful dynamic unrelated to the pastoral groves of the Academy. The hallways and sanctuaries of our schools, houses of worship, and other areas of public assembly have been desecrated by violence, shooting, destruction, and death. There is no need for Kohlberg’s fictional dilemmas; daily life on the West Coast and the East Coast, north and south, and even in the holy chambers of the Congress of the United States, have become a living pandemic of moral crisis, dilemma, and failure. Indeed, snapchat, smartphones, and on-site television cameras are writing the next sagas and stories of moral education in the twenty-first century.

It should come as no surprise that the subject of teaching morals and values has been a central arena of contemplation, thought, and practice in the world of education. From ancient times until today, there has been a sense of connection between education and being a good or moral person. As we have seen, there are many approaches to this subject, and it continues to preoccupy those who believe that education is related to how we live as human beings. The twentieth century was an extremely dramatic arena for reflection and the implementation of the diverse approaches to moral education. The twenty-first century is proving to be a painfully vivid setting highlighting the need for moral education and a moral way. Indeed, I think it is fair to say that moral education continues to be one of the central pressing and eternally important elements of the life and work of the world of education.

This is one of a series of dilemmas created by Lawrence Kohlberg for his dilemma discussion practice.

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Chazan, B. (2022). What Is “Moral Education”?. In: Principles and Pedagogies in Jewish Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83925-3_4

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Why Moral Education is Important in Students Life

• What is moral education?
• Objectives and need for moral education
• Moral and ethical values -A comparative study
• The four pillars of moral education
• Why do we need moral education to be part of the modern education curriculum?
• How can schools implement moral-education values to students?

Over the years, the term moral education has been defined in various ways by numerous scholars. There is no particular definition for the term.

However, to understand it in simple and plain language we can say that moral education is the teaching of values that distinguish between right and wrong. It is this set of values that finally guides your behaviour and intentions towards others around you.

For centuries, academicians and intellects have debated the world over whether moral values should be taught in schools or not. Many believe that moral and ethical values cannot be taught but can only be learned through the actions of peers and elders.

In this case, the foremost question that may arise is how do we distinguish the right action from a wrong one if we are not taught the same. One act may be considered right for a particular person and wrong to another.

Therefore, it becomes necessary to universally consolidate a certain set of values and morals to enable community living. Moral values in education are as important as a Doctor of Philosophy.

The debate about adopting moral education in schools may go on for a long time, but the importance of moral education cannot be undermined.

The importance of moral education in schools can be determined through the objectives of moral education.

The objectives of moral education can be summarized as below.

• Moral education helps to differentiate between what is universally accepted as right and what is accepted as wrong.
• It defines an individual’s personality. A person may be classified as a moral or immoral person.
• Moral education helps to eliminate or minimise the vices like jealousy, greed, etc.
• Inculcating or adopting moral values can positively impact one’s self, and it can build a positive attitude and develop self-confidence .

Need for Moral Education

“To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.” Theodore Roosevelt

With the rapid development of the internet and technology over the past few years , the world has become a global village.

With distances being shortened, high-speed communication, and closer interactions between different groups, the world has become a single community linked together by telecommunications.

This fast-paced world has brought about the need for the introduction of ethics, values, and morals to promote community living. Moral education has never been felt more required than today.

Surveys reveal that the early 1980s saw a drastic decline in students’ academic performance and behavioural patterns. It was then that educators reintroduced the term “character” in their tutoring sessions.

Character can be defined as the moral qualities that are distinct to an individual. Educators emphasized on introducing students to good character and eliminating bad habits.

Educators then believed that an early introduction to good habits or ethical values was conducive to building harmony in society. Therefore, it can be clearly seen why moral education is essential.

Moral and Ethical Values

As Albert Einstein once said “The most important human endeavour is the striving for morality in our actions. Our inner balance and even our very existence depend on it. Only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to life”

The term moral and ethics is more often interchangeably used though in practice the two words have entirely different connotations.

Morals are more like values that define an individual in society. Morals are values that protect and respect life.

Not only the life of one’s self but the life of everyone around. Every moral value function to enhance the quality of life. Here, it is pertinent to note that moral values may differ according to the situation one is in.

For example, one of the core moral values in society today is honour and respect for oneself and another. However, this same honour may be construed as disrespect and conceit for another to protect one’s own dignity.

The real moral value of honour should therefore be taught as universal respect and honour for another life irrespective of other catalysts.

Ethics on the other hand can be defined as an individual who possesses moral values and expresses willingness to do only the right thing despite the difficulty in performing the morally right act. A person is said to be ethical if he possesses and practices moral values.

Listing out a set of defined moral or ethical values is not a realistic task.

However, religious texts, philosophers, and preachers have laid down the principle of moral and ethical values that ought to be followed by every individual for a harmonious society.

However, ethics and morality have little to do with religion. The values have more to do with living in a civilized society , graciously and amicably.

The Four Pillars of Moral Education

The four pillars of moral education describe the foundation upon which moral education rests.

1. Character and Morality

Here moral education are individual-centric. It concentrates on individual character building.

2. Individual and Community

Moral education concerning the individual and the community is how each individual behaves himself and concerning the community at large.

The focus is on building an individual that will be part of a greater community.

3. Civic Education

The main aim of cultural education in moral education is to learn how the nation came to be what it is today.

The ideals of our forefathers and the teachings of great scholars are contributing factors that have shaped humanity and the nation.

4. Cultural Education

Close on the principles of civic education, cultural education also forms an integral part of moral education. Culture denotes the customs and traditions of a particular nation or ethnic group.

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Why Is Moral Education Important in Schools ?

“Education without morals is like a ship without a compass, merely wandering nowhere.” – Martin Luther King

Imparting moral values to a child begins with elders at home. This education however does not end in the formative years and before the child is ready for school.

Imparting value education requires years of understanding and absorption. Every age and stage of the child entails different levels of perception.

Therefore, it becomes imperative that teachers would have to continue this education in schools to ensure continuity of moral education from the elders at home.

Schools are the heart and soul of a child’s life. The formative years of a child are the most important. It is at this time that the child’s character can be moulded and defined.

School teachers and peers are the greatest influence on these impressionable minds. Laying a standard set of values and morals to be taught in school can go a long way in building student character.

Moral education in schools is an effective method of inculcating values in children.

How Schools Can Adopt Better Methods to Impart Moral Education for Students?

Imparting moral values for students is a difficult mission. Keeping students engaged in value-based classes can be a daunting task.

Young minds often wander and get distracted soon. Keeping students engaged and at the same time imparting moral values is the key.

One of the tried and tested methods in many schools is by introducing community activities in the form of designated dates such as lend a helping hand day, share a smile day or even a visit to an orphanage or an old age home.

Practicing activities that involve community assistance can give students first-hand experience. Such activities can inculcate a sense of belonging right from a tender age.

What Is the Right Age to Teach Moral Values in Students?

As there are no defined set of rules or a particular curriculum or syllabus related to moral education, the question of when to initiate this value education comes into picture.

Is there a right age? Is there a time when it becomes too late to initiate value education? To answer these questions, one must necessarily reflect on life as a whole.

Value education begins at a very tender age. The process of growing and evolving involves the inculcation of values.

Learning to share, learning to respect, learning to help others in need are all virtues imbibed in us in our formative years. Some of these values are not even taught. They are learned from experience.

At later stages of life, one may make mistakes, minor or grave errors. Such situations demand a reiteration of values. That is why moral education is essential in schools.

There is no particular age that is considered the right age to impart moral education to students. The earlier one is introduced to moral and value education, the easier it is to mould a character. Moral education is a lifelong learning skill.

In conclusion, it must be noted that imparting value and moral education in schools is as important as a subject in mathematics or science.

A doctorate in these subjects is of no use without a sound moral character. Knowledge will most definitely give the students the power, but good character will earn respect.

The truth of one’s character is judged by a choice of actions. These actions are guided by moral principles learned over the years. The importance of moral education can never be undermined.

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Moral Values in Education Essay

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The responsibility of educating a child falls on both the parents and the teachers. In most instances, teachers are always trying to get the parents to be part of their children’s education. On the other hand, parents tend to handle any communication from their children’s teachers delicately. For instance, notes and phone calls from teachers are a cause of serious concern for parents. Furthermore, whenever parents do not hear from teachers they often assume that all is well with their children.

Therefore, it is likely that students will be at a disadvantage because of the lack of communication between parents and teachers. Consequently, it is only natural for schools to teach moral values to students. Schools are relied upon by the community and parents to instill and reinforce moral values among students.

Teaching moral values to students eliminate the bias that is common with children from different backgrounds. Some students could be major beneficiaries of a school system that teaches moral values as they lack this foundation at home. Therefore, schools should teach moral values so as to contribute to social and educational harmony.

Schools are mostly public or private owned institutions that are expected to pass knowledge to students. Consequently, when schools are given the role of teaching moral values, this job is passed on to either the government or a few individuals. Most people feel that when schools teach moral values, the government is the organ that dictates what should be taught to students. Teaching moral values that are set up through government institutions elicits sharp emotions among various individuals.

On the other hand, most people are aware of the fact that parents teach their children moral values at a very tender age. Therefore, there is a possibility of moralities clashing when schools start introducing opposing points of view as part of the students’ curriculum.

The dominance of personal opinions among various teachers presents a challenge to the validity of teaching moral values in schools. Schools should not teach moral values because this creates several dimensions of conflict that involve teachers, students, the government, and parents.

Those people who support the argument that schools should teach morality are of the view that it is futile for students to gain all other skills in life and end up lacking in moral values. Consequently, students will go to school and learn scientific applications, events in history, how to calculate, among other skills. However, this knowledge can be highly improved by a student’s ability to express honor, kindness, empathy, and integrity towards others.

Therefore, when schools teach moral values, they create a worthwhile balance in the students’ lives. Furthermore, when too much value is attached to end results and achievements, moral transgressions are likely to occur. Teaching moral values in schools do not involve a tyrannical activity that is engineered by the government and other forces.

Moral curriculums can be developed jointly by the staff, parents, sociologists, religious leaders, and other stakeholders. Consequently, a moral curriculum does not only consist of controversial biases, as most people believe. The fears that moral education can be easily highjacked by third parties and individuals with self-interests are unfounded. For instance, in schools where moral education is instituted through a joint effort, positive results are achieved.

The relationship between moral values and the education system is far-fetched. Moral education is more aligned with culture than it is related to the education system. Furthermore, all education systems are streamlined and standardized. Moral values and systems are flexible and it is unlikely that a standard education curriculum can accommodate this flexibility. For example, accommodating moral education in the school system would mean that different students receive different types of education by their cultural backgrounds.

Those who argue in favor of moral values being taught in schools claim that students need more than formal education for them to be good citizens. However, there is evidence that indicates that the most valuable citizens are the ones who explore and question authorities with the view of understanding the basis of rules and laws.

There are concerns that most moral curriculums are only meant to suppress the curiosity of the citizenry with the aim of subjecting individuals to imperialist regimes. Moreover, political and economic factors are more likely to influence the moral behaviors of children in school systems.

The debate on whether schools should teach moral values to students stretches far and wide. One school of thought believes that it is not the school’s responsibility to teach morality to students. On the other hand, another group feels that an educational experience is not complete without moral values. There are concerns that teaching moral values in schools undermines the role of culture in students’ lives.

Furthermore, it is often argued that teaching morality would create confusion in schools because different students subscribe to different moral systems. This latter view is opposed by the argument that not all moral values are subject to controversy. Proponents of teaching moral values in schools also point out that this system has proved to be helpful in the past.

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1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology

Philosophy, One Thousand Words at a Time

Moral Education: Teaching Students to Become Better People

Author: Dominik Balg Categories:  Philosophy of Education , Ethics , Social and Political Philosophy Word Count: 999

Moral guidance is an integral part of primary and secondary schooling. For instance, students are praised for being helpful and kind, and told that this is right and good. They are also told not to cheat, bully, and steal, as these actions are wrong and bad.

So schools are engaged in some forms of moral education. [1]

What are the proper goals of this moral education, and how should those goals be pursued?

Theories of moral education try to answer that question: they provide ideas about how we can, and should, try to teach morality and shape students into morally better people.

This essay introduces some of the most influential theories.

1. Directive vs. Non-directive Theories of Moral Education

Theories of moral education can be divided into directive and non-directive theories. [2]  

According to directive theories, schools should directly teach students that some actions are wrong, that some actions are right, and tell them which is which and why . They should also teach students some about what’s fair and just, and some about what makes a person morally better and worse: what character traits are virtues and which are vices. 

In contrast, non-directive theories do not aim to teach any specific moral views: they focus on developing students’ abilities to discover for themselves what’s moral. These theories do, however, usually propose that moral education involves giving students some knowledge, e.g., about moral concepts and arguments.

2. Directive Theories

There are several influential directive theories, each with a different proposal for which specific moral views should be taught in educational settings:

• knowledge-transmission theories recommend that schools should teach moral views that their proponents reasonably believe are known to be true [3] ;
• transcendental theories urge the teaching of values that are presupposed by a wide variety of moral outlooks, the moral foundations that people with different moral views on broader social and political issues agree on;
• pragmatic theories propose that schools should teach those moral views that are useful for well-functioning societies. [4]

These theories share a common idea: to become functioning members of society, to make responsible decisions, and to lead good lives, students need to know something about what’s right and wrong, and good and bad. They need to understand and accept some basic rules of conduct: e.g., they need to accept that one should not be violent or treat other people unfairly. Since moral rules can conflict with students’ immediate desires and preferences, we can’t expect students to make good moral decisions without explicit instruction: directive theories attempt to provide this guidance. [5]

While this all may seem plausible, there are, however, concerns about directive approaches. Beyond many of the basic rules of conduct for functioning classrooms and societies, moral issues are often controversial. Concerning ethical questions where there are reasonable disagreements, teaching specific answers as knowledge might amount to wrongful indoctrination , not moral education. [6]  Furthermore, people often disagree on the details of which moral views everyone must accept or agree on—what might be “transcendent”—and which exact moral views people need to accept for a functioning society—what’s “pragmatic.”

Finally, even advocates of directive theories should agree students should also learn how to make responsible moral decisions independently: teaching some specific moral views won’t help them develop the skills they need to make well-reasoned moral judgments on their own. [7]

3. Non-Directive Theories

The common aim of non-directive theories of moral education is to enable students to reasonably and responsibly answer moral questions independently. Different theories propose different ways to achieve that aim.

3.1. Skill-based Theories

Skill-based theories aim at the development of critical reasoning skills. [8]  These include the ability to give reasons for one’s views, to assess the quality of different arguments, and to reconsider one’s views in light of new evidence. [9]  By developing such skills, students can better make their own reasoned moral judgments.

3.2. Emotion-based Theories

According to emotion-based theories , moral education should help students develop emotional skills that should guide their moral judgment: e.g., by engaging in role-plays or reading literary narratives and watching films, students can develop empathy and sympathy . [10]  They can also learn how to use techniques like meditation or breathing exercises to cultivate attentiveness or feelings of compassion , hopefulness, or gratitude . [11]  Such emotional skills might contribute to students’ own well-being and help them make better moral choices.

3.3. Character-based Theories

According to character-based theories , moral education should build moral character. This view is usually spelled out in terms of cultivating moral virtues such as honesty , courage , humility, and compassion [12] : by promoting the development of such virtues, teachers can help students to become better people. [13]  For example, teachers can read and discuss texts of virtuous exemplars like Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King with their students to motivate them to emulate these persons’ attitudes or characters. [14]

4. Conclusion

Any particular choice between these theories of moral education must respect students’ autonomy and acknowledge that moral questions are often controversial: this will constrain the use of directive approaches, which recommend teaching specific moral views. But the fact that moral questions are often not controversial will constrain non-directive approaches also: if a student concludes from some attempt at non-directive moral education that there’s nothing ever wrong with cheating, bullying, and stealing, or that arrogance and cruelty are virtues, then that “moral education” has failed. 

A general challenge is that successful moral education should ideally not just have an impact on how students think and feel, but also on how they act . People often believe they should act a certain way, but can’t bring themselves to do so. So students not only need to be brought to have appropriate moral beliefs—which often isn’t easy—they also need to learn to put their moral beliefs into practice: that’s often even harder, for anyone, at any age, and at any level of education. [15]  

While many open questions remain, the above considerations should also give rise to some optimism: there are many theories that schools and teachers can experiment with as they try to help students become better, and hopefully genuinely good, people.

[1] This essay is about moral or ethical education, but what is morality or ethics anyway? (Philosophers often consider ethics and morality to be the same thing: what’s ethical is moral, what’s immoral is unethical, and so on.).

This is a challenging philosophical question, and one way to answer it—among many other ways—is that ethics or morality concerns behavior that ethical or moral theories would condemn as wrong, or support as right . Two influential ethical theories include consequentialism , which focusses on promoting overall good consequences, and Kant’s ethics , or Kantian deontology , which focuses on respecting persons and following rules that we’d accept that everyone follow. For introductions to these theories, see Consequentialism and Utilitarianism by Shane Gronholz and Deontology: Kantian Ethics by Andrew Chapman.

To better understand what morality and ethics are, readers are encouraged to review these and other morally theories, and reflect on how they might be relevant to personal ethical choices and ethical questions about law and social policy: many essays in the Ethics section of 1000-Word Philosophy can provide guidance in reflecting on particular ethical issues.

[2] For a more detailed explanation of the distinction between directive and non-directive theories of moral education, see, e.g., Hand 2014, 526; 2020, 14.

[3] Advocates of knowledge-transmission theories, of course, presume that there is some moral knowledge , or that some moral claims are known . While the idea of moral knowledge is sometimes controversial, many people would think and say that they know it’s usually good to be a helpful and kind person and that it’s always wrong to bully innocent people, and that stealing is usually, if not always, wrong: so most people seem to think there is some knowledge. For introductions to moral epistemology —the application of epistemology, or theory of knowledge, to moral claims—see Epistemology, or Theory of Knowledge by Thomas Metcalf and Ethical Realism by Thomas Metcalf.

[4] On knowledge-transmission theories see, e.g., Balg 2023. On transcendental theories, see, e.g., Hirst 1974 and Tiedemann 2019. On pragmatic theories, see, e.g., Hand 2014, 2018.

[5] For a more detailed discussion of the indispensability of moral education, see, e.g., Hand 2018, 7-10.

[6] On what indoctrination is and why it’s often problematic, see Indoctrination: What is it to Indoctrinate Someone? by Chris Ranalli. For an introductory discussion of how we might respond when reasonable people disagree in their views on an issue, see The Epistemology of Disagreement by Jonathan Matheson.

[7] See Moral Testimony by Annaleigh Curtis for a discussion of how gaining knowledge from others might not result in understanding that topic. Applied to moral education, the concern is that someone might know that some action is wrong, yet not understand why the action is wrong in a manner that will allow them to apply that understanding to other moral issues. A concern about directive theories of moral education is that they won’t provide this type of understanding.

[8] For a defense of skill-based theories, see, e.g., Meyer 2023, Musschenga 2009.

[9] See Critical Thinking: What is it to be a Critical Thinker? by Carolina Flores and Arguments: Why Do You Believe What You Believe? by Thomas Metcalf. These essays review critical thinking and argument analysis concepts and skills in general, and these concepts and skills can be applied to ethics and moral education.

[10] People often think of empathy as a moral virtue: it’s good to be a person who would respond with empathy. But many philosophers and psychologists define empathy as a specific emotional capability , i.e., the ability to imagine other people’s feelings (see, e.g., Eisenberg and Strayer 1987; Goldman 2006; Hoffman 2000). Against the background of such an understanding, empathy shouldn’t be conceived of as a virtue because virtues and capabilities are two different things: while the former indicate what a person would (not) do under certain circumstances, the latter indicate what a person is able to do (Battaly 2011). Given this, a person could use her empathetic capabilities for purposes that are morally problematic: e.g., to manipulate or exploit other people. So, empathy is not, in itself , a moral virtue: it is a virtue only when it is used to promote right and good ends, so to speak.

For a defense of emotion-based theories that specifically appeal to the emotion of empathy, see, e.g., Nussbaum 2003, Slote 2009. For a defense of an emotion-based theory that specifically appeals to the emotion of sympathy, see, e.g., Noddings 2002.

[11] For an emotion-based approach that specifically recommends the use of such techniques, see e.g., Ash et al. 2019.

[12] See Virtue Ethics by David Merry for a discussion of what virtues , or good character traits are

[13] For a defense of this view, see, e.g., Arthur et al. 2017, Kristjánsson 2015 or Miller 2022.

[14] For a discussion of this strategy, see, e.g., Vos 2017.

[15] Indeed, it has been observed that too many philosophers and ethicists (and other thinkers), even ones who develop moral theories and theories of moral education, sometimes have false, unjustified, or bad ethical views and/or behave badly. For discussion about how to respond to this, see Responding to Morally Flawed Historical Philosophers and Philosophies by Victor Fabian Abundez-Guerra and Nathan Nobis.

Arthur, J., Kristjánsson, K., Harrison, T., Sanderse, W., and Wright, D. (2017). Teaching Character and Virtue in Schools. Routledge: London.

Ash, M., Harrison, T., Pinto, M., DiClemente, R., and Negi, L. T. (2019). A model for cognitively‑based compassion training: theoretical underpinnings and proposed mechanisms. Social Theory & Health 19: 43–67.

Balg, D. (2023). Moral Disagreement and Moral Education: What’s the Problem? Ethical Theory and Moral Practice. Online first.

Battaly, H. (2011). Is empathy a Virtue? In: Amy Coplan, and Peter Goldies (ed): Empathy – Philosophical and Psychological Perspectives. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 277-301.

Eisenberg, N., and Strayer, J. (1987). Empathy and its development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Goldman, A. (2006). Simulating minds: The philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience of mindreading. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Hand, M. (2014). Towards a Theory of Moral Education. Journal of Philosophy of Education 48(4): 519-532.

Hand M. (2018). A Theory of Moral Education. London: Routledge.

Hand, M. (2020): Moral Education in the Community of Inquiry. Journal of Philosophy in Schools 7(2): 4-20.

Hirst, P. (1974): Moral Education in a Secular Society . London: University of London Press.

Hoffman, M. L. (2000). Empathy and moral development: Implications for caring and justice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kristjánsson, K. (2015): Aristotelian Character Education. Routledge, New York.

Meyer, K. (2023): Moral Education Through the Fostering of Reasoning Skills. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice. Online first.

Miller, C. (2022): How Situationism Impacts the Goals of Character Education. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice. Online first.

Musschenga, A. W. (2009). Moral Intuitions, Moral Expertise and Moral Reasoning. Journal of Philosophy of Education 43(4): 597-613.

Noddings, Nel (2002): Educating Moral People: A Caring Alternative to Character Education. New York: Teachers College Press.

Nussbaum, M. (2003): Cultivating humanity. A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Slote, M. (2009): Caring, Empathy and Moral Education. In Harvey Siegel (ed.): The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Education, 211-226. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Tiedemann, M. (2019): Philosophical Education and Transcendental Tolerance. Analytic Teaching and Philosophical Praxis 39(2), 32-40.

Vos, P. H. (2017): Learning from exemplars: emulation, character formation and the complexities of ordinary life. Journal of Beliefs & Values 29(1): 17-28.

Related Essays

Critical Thinking: What is it to be a Critical Thinker? by Carolina Flores

Arguments: Why Do You Believe What You Believe? by Thomas Metcalf

Consequentialism and Utilitarianism by Shane Gronholz

Deontology: Kantian Ethics by Andrew Chapman

Virtue Ethics by David Merry

Epistemology, or Theory of Knowledge by Thomas Metcalf

Ethical Realism by Thomas Metcalf

The Epistemology of Disagreement by Jonathan Matheson

Indoctrination: What is it to Indoctrinate Someone? By Chris Ranalli

Moral Testimony by Annaleigh Curtis

Philosophical Inquiry in Childhood by Jana Mohr Lone

Responding to Morally Flawed Historical Philosophers and Philosophies by Victor Fabian Abundez-Guerra and Nathan Nobis

About the Author

Dominik Balg is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Mainz. He received his PhD in Philosophy from the University of Cologne. He specializes in philosophy of education and philosophical issues in teaching philosophy. philpeople.org/profiles/dominik-balg

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Moral Education Essays

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• Essay on Importance of Education

Importance of Education Essay

Education is one of the key components for an individual’s success. It has the ability to shape one’s life in the right direction. Education is a process of imparting or acquiring knowledge, and developing the powers of reasoning and judgement. It prepares growing children intellectually for a life with more mature understanding and sensitivity to issues surrounding them. It improves not only the personal life of the people but also their community. Thus, one cannot neglect the significance of Education in life and society. Here, we have provided an essay on the Importance of Education. Students can use this essay to prepare for their English exam or as a speech to participate in the school competition.

Importance of Education

The importance of education in life is immense. It facilitates quality learning for people throughout their life. It inculcates knowledge, belief, skill, values and moral habits. It improves the way of living and raises the social and economic status of individuals. Education makes life better and more peaceful. It transforms the personality of individuals and makes them feel confident.

Well said by Nelson Mandela, “Education is the most powerful weapon to change the world”. To elaborate, it is the foundation of the society which brings economic wealth, social prosperity and political stability. It gives power to people to put their views and showcase their real potential. It strengthens democracy by providing citizens with the tools to participate in the governance process. It acts as an integrative force to foster social cohesion and national identity.

In India, education is a constitutional right of every citizen. So, people of any age group, religion, caste, creed and region are free to receive education. An educated person is respected everywhere and well-treated in society. As a kid, every child dreams of being a doctor, lawyer, engineer, actor, sportsperson, etc. These dreams can come true through education. So, investment in education gives the best return. Well-educated people have more opportunities to get a better job which makes them feel satisfied.

In schools, education is divided into different levels, i.e., preschool, primary, secondary and senior secondary. School education comprises traditional learning which provides students with theoretical knowledge. However, now various efforts are being made to establish inbuilt application-based learning by adding numerous experiments, practicals and extracurricular activities to the school curriculum. Students learn to read, write and represent their viewpoints in front of others. Also, in this era of digital Education, anyone can easily access information online at their fingertips. They can learn new skills and enhance their knowledge.

Steps Taken By Government To Promote Education

Education is evidently an important aspect that no government can ignore in order to ensure the equitable development of a nation. Unfortunately, some children still do not have access to education. The Government has thereby taken initiatives to improve education quality and made it accessible to everyone, especially the poor people.

The Government passed the Right to Education Act 2009 (RTE Act 2009) on 4 August 2009. This Act came into effect on 1 April 2010, following which education has become the fundamental right of every child in India. It provides free and compulsory elementary education to children of the age group of 6-14 years in a neighbourhood school within 1 km, up to Class 8 in India. On similar lines, there are other schemes launched by the government, such as Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan , Mid-Day Meal , Adult Education and Skill Development Scheme, National Means cum Merit Scholarship Scheme, National Program for Education of Girls at Elementary Education, Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya, Scheme for Infrastructure Development in Minority Institutions, Beti Bachao , Beti Padhao, etc.

For our country’s growth, we require a well-educated population equipped with the relevant knowledge, attitude and skills. This can be achieved by spreading awareness about the importance of Education in rural areas. There is a famous saying that “If we feed one person, we will eliminate his hunger for only one time. But, if we educate a person, we will change his entire life”. Henceforth he will become capable of earning a livelihood by himself.

This essay on the Importance of Education must have helped students to improve their writing section for the English exam. They can also practice essays on other topics by visiting the CBSE Essay page. Keep learning and stay tuned with BYJU’S for the latest updates on CBSE/ICSE/State Board/Competitive Exams. Also, download the BYJU’S App for interactive study videos.

Frequently Asked Questions on Education Essay

How can the literacy rate in india be increased.

People in rural areas must be informed about the importance of providing education to their children. Also, with the COVID-19 situation, the government should take steps by providing laptops/phones for children to follow online classes.

Are girl children still denied their right to get educated?

Although awareness has now improved, there are still many villages in India where girl children are not provided with proper education or allowed to enrol themselves in schools. This mentality has to change for the betterment of the society.

Teaching subjects/academics alone is enough, or should students be introduced to other forms of educational activities too?

Extracurricular activities, moral value education, etc., are also as important as regular academic teachings.

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Paragraph on Importance Of Moral Education

Students are often asked to write a paragraph on Importance Of Moral Education in their schools. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 200-word, and 250-word paragraphs on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

Paragraph on Importance Of Moral Education in 100 Words

Moral education is like a special guide helping us to choose what is right. Imagine it as a little voice in our heads, reminding us to be kind, honest, and respectful. It teaches us good manners like saying ‘please’, ‘thank you’, and ‘sorry’. It helps us make good friends because when we are nice, others want to be our friends too. It also tells us not to lie, steal, or hurt others. It’s like a superhero power that helps us grow into good people. So, learning about morals is very important for us.

Paragraph on Importance Of Moral Education in 200 Words

Moral education is like a light that guides us in life. It helps us know the difference between right and wrong, good and bad. We learn to be kind, honest, respectful, and loving towards all, not just people, but also animals and nature. It teaches us to share, help others, and to say sorry when we make a mistake. When we have good morals, we make better choices. We can avoid problems and lead a happier life. It is like a friend who helps us when we are in doubt. For example, if we find a lost wallet, moral education tells us to return it to its owner, even if no one is watching. Just like we need food for our bodies, we need moral education for our minds and hearts. It helps us grow into good human beings. So, just like we learn math and science in school, we should also learn moral education. It is an important part of our life that guides us to be the best we can be.

Paragraph on Importance Of Moral Education in 250 Words

Moral education is a key part of our learning, just like science or math. It teaches us the difference between right and wrong, helping us make good choices. It forms an important part of our character and behavior, setting the basis for us to grow into responsible adults. This kind of learning doesn’t just happen in school, but also at home and in our communities. We learn to respect others, to be honest, kind, and fair. We learn to help those who need it and to stand up against unfairness. Without moral education, we may struggle to understand the impact of our actions on others. It helps us live in harmony with others, making our homes, schools, and communities better places to be. Moral education also encourages us to take care of our environment, to respect all life forms, and to value the resources we have. In a world that is becoming more complicated, we need this more than ever. We need to know how to make the best decisions, not just for ourselves, but for everyone around us. So, moral education is not an extra part of our learning, it’s a necessary part. It helps us grow into the best version of ourselves, making us better friends, students, and future leaders.

That’s it! I hope the paragraphs have helped you.

Apart from these, you can look at all the essays by  clicking here .

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Essay on Importance of Education for Students

500 words essay on importance of education.

To say Education is important is an understatement. Education is a weapon to improve one’s life. It is probably the most important tool to change one’s life. Education for a child begins at home. It is a lifelong process that ends with death. Education certainly determines the quality of an individual’s life. Education improves one’s knowledge, skills and develops the personality and attitude. Most noteworthy, Education affects the chances of employment for people. A highly educated individual is probably very likely to get a good job. In this essay on importance of education, we will tell you about the value of education in life and society.

Importance of Education in Life

First of all, Education teaches the ability to read and write. Reading and writing is the first step in Education. Most information is done by writing. Hence, the lack of writing skill means missing out on a lot of information. Consequently, Education makes people literate.

Above all, Education is extremely important for employment. It certainly is a great opportunity to make a decent living. This is due to the skills of a high paying job that Education provides. Uneducated people are probably at a huge disadvantage when it comes to jobs. It seems like many poor people improve their lives with the help of Education.

Better Communication is yet another role in Education. Education improves and refines the speech of a person. Furthermore, individuals also improve other means of communication with Education.

Education makes an individual a better user of technology. Education certainly provides the technical skills necessary for using technology . Hence, without Education, it would probably be difficult to handle modern machines.

People become more mature with the help of Education. Sophistication enters the life of educated people. Above all, Education teaches the value of discipline to individuals. Educated people also realize the value of time much more. To educated people, time is equal to money.

Finally, Educations enables individuals to express their views efficiently. Educated individuals can explain their opinions in a clear manner. Hence, educated people are quite likely to convince people to their point of view.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Importance of Education in Society

First of all, Education helps in spreading knowledge in society. This is perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of Education. There is a quick propagation of knowledge in an educated society. Furthermore, there is a transfer of knowledge from generation to another by Education.

Education helps in the development and innovation of technology. Most noteworthy, the more the education, the more technology will spread. Important developments in war equipment, medicine , computers, take place due to Education.

Education is a ray of light in the darkness. It certainly is a hope for a good life. Education is a basic right of every Human on this Planet. To deny this right is evil. Uneducated youth is the worst thing for Humanity. Above all, the governments of all countries must ensure to spread Education.

FAQs on Essay on Importance of Education

Q.1 How Education helps in Employment?

A.1 Education helps in Employment by providing necessary skills. These skills are important for doing a high paying job.

Q.2 Mention one way in Education helps a society?

A.2 Education helps society by spreading knowledge. This certainly is one excellent contribution to Education.

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