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importance of moral development in education
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The Power Of Education
The Power of education is overwhelming. It develops and enhances the minds of young children into young adults. Education serves as a tool for society to raise its youth to serve society. This process has been a never ending cycle since as long as anyone can remember. Children maturing into proper adults has been the goal of education in the past. However, there is a major controversy over the effects and power of the educational system. Throughout the past the educational system has been the focus over the development of society's youth. All parents, teachers, and concerned individuals ponder the notion of the role and effects of the system in question. Is the purpose of our educational system to teach just the cold hard facts and information, or should it exist to also serve to supply our juveniles with ethics and morals? One such person who confronts today's system is an author, Jonathan Kozol. His thoughts over this concerned area have brought him to write a book entitled, The Night is Dark and I am Far From Home. In his writing he argues that Public schools in the U.S. do not exist to educate an ethical being, but rather educate unprovocative, conforming American citizens. (133) I agree. The function of our educational system should be in existence to serve our growing children with not only the knowledge of information, but the wisdom of morality as well.
However, in order to further argue the importance of morality, a formal definition is needed. Just what is meant by morality? Any number of people can look at it and perceive its identity differently. Two writers Barry L.Chazan and Jonas F.Soltis talk define the significance of a moral situation in education as follows,
It is, rather, a si...
... middle of paper ...
...th kindness, touched with
irony, decorated with compassion, is a reasonable goal
for moral paralytics in a land of drought. (168)
Morality is needed in the schools for these very reasons. One who opposes this view is only presenting an obstacle to the future growth of our society. As I stated before, the power of education is overwhelming. Morality is needed to provide students with a new emotion of eagerness to learn, able to confront each others ideas, and hold their own beliefs. It is our responsibility to mold our children of clay into powerful, individual, concrete statues, that can last forever.
Works Cited
Bereiter, Carl.. Must we Educate. Prentice Hall; N.J. 1973
Chazan, Barry I. and Soltis, Jonas F. Moral Education.Columbia; NY and London, 1973.
Kozol, Jonathan. The Night is Dark and I am Far From Home.
Houghton Mifflin: Boston, 1975.
Many Americans do not question the credibility of the education system within the country because they believe it forms good citizens and creates a stepping-stone to success. John Taylor Gatto is an American teacher who has experience in the classroom for thirty years and has now devoted his life to critiquing American schools exploiting his own experiences. In his essay “Against School”, he argues that the 12-year system of school may not be necessary, due to its curriculum, and that it may be a tactic of manipulation from the government to promote obedience. I agree with his argument because there are many paths to individual success outside of public education, such as homeschooling or vocational school.
John Taylor Gatto in his essay “Against School” explains the lack of motivation that students have to the educational system of the USA. He also explains the damage that the system makes to both, students and teachers, by the non-interesting topics they are taught class. Furthermore, he enlightens the indifference of students towards the teacher, seem as incompetent and unprepared. In addition, he also highlights the dark side of the school system which intends to brainwash and rescind the ideas from students. He addresses a main goal of the educational system; convert juveniles into the next docile and manageable generation. Wherefore, he proposes an educational system that should be structured and not controlled. In addition,
Education has always been at the core of our society. Education, along with society, continue to not only teach the young community, but model us into so called “civilized citizens”. A civilized citizen, is one who continues to behave and move along the path of human advancement. As a student, the educational systems will teach you the following: what to do, how to act, and how to think. Coming from a student’s perspective, schools are becoming more military based. For example, people within the military wear uniforms. Do all civilized citizens have to wear uniforms? The change in education is not through books, but the attitude of what freedom has allowed in the past years, violence in the school systems.
Schools are the basic foundation of knowledge, which is imparted to children. They give a chance for children to gain knowledge in various fields such as humanity, literature, history, mathematics and science. By obtaining knowledge, they are in a better position to know the world around them. A school is a society where faith and other values are developed. Schools also play an important role in a democratic social set up. Students of today are the citizens of tomorrow. Schools are the backbone of a society, where children interact with other children and develop certain social skills. Education in schools opens doors to various opportunities that would not be possible if it had not been for the knowledge one gained at school. However, in the articles, “Idiot Nation” by Michael Moore and “Against School” by John Taylor Gatto, the authors express their concerns about the degrading quality of education. There are many problems the education system is facing today, and several of them are having negative effects on the quality of the education that the students are receiving which are highlighted aptly by the effective use of rhetorical strategies by Moore and Gatto.
Jonathon Kozol writes, "Public schools in the U.S. do not exist to educate an ethical human being…Schools do exist to educate defeated, unprovocative, well-balanced human beings…". This statement is certainly true, but should public schools be required to teach students ethics and morality? I would argue that an education devoid of ethics and morals is detrimental to our society. Scholar Joao Coutinho writes in the Harvard Educational Review, "Education is either for domestication or for freedom…There is no neutral education."
For my part, I do not think that schools are the places for children to learn morals and ethics. I believe that those are things someone must learn on their own. The method of authority, described by Charles Peirce in his writings, has no place in the formation of anyone's beliefs. Beliefs are totally subjective--that is, there are no "right," or "wrong" beliefs to hold. Therefore, why should the teaching of morals and ethics, which fall into the category of beliefs, be condoned.
Besides the classroom, nowhere in modern society emphasizes learning for the sake of knowledge. In society, the people who receive praise are the ones who did not have a solid education. America has become obsessed with success stories that forgo education because educational knowledge no longer contains any value. American leaders do not make an extra effort to try and fix the failing education system, so if the world powers of America do not care to make progressive improvements for the education system, why should citizens of America even care about the education system? The students in school have picked up on these thoughts and instead of listening to the classroom teacher the students listen to the world teachers. Barber defines these world teachers as “the nation’s true pedagogues, are television, advertising, movies, politics, and the celebrity domains they define.” (Barber, 2014, p. 2.). These leaders have different values than the values set as the standard by the education system. The education system values wisdom, knowledge, critical thinking, and the ability to articulate one’s thoughts and ideas convincingly. While the American system contrasts these ideas: “We honor ambition, we reward greed, we celebrate materialism, we worship acquisitiveness, we cherish success, and we commercialize the classroom. . . We recommend history to the kids but rarely consult it ourselves. (Barber, 2014, p. 4.). This reasoning lays the foundation for the destruction of the school system. Adults do not find value in education, but they encourage their children to try and find value in area the adults do not. Children have caught on to this and decided the absolute best option for them to success is to flee the classroom setting and surround themselves in the world where they can learn firsthand the steps to become successful. The societal influence cultivates children more effectively than the classroom
John Taylor Gatto in his essay “Against School” explains the lack of motivation that students have to the educational system of the USA. He also explains the damage that the system makes to both, students and teachers, by the non-interesting topics they are taught in class. Furthermore, he enlightens the indifference of students towards the teacher, seem as incompetent and unprepared. In addition, he also highlights the dark side of the school system which intends to brainwash and rescind the ideas from students. He addresses a main goal of the educational system; convert juveniles into the next docile and manageable generation. Wherefore, he proposes an educational system that should be structured and not controlled. In addition, he demonstrates
A fundamental element that brings society together can be summarized in one term: ethics. This concept is deep-rooted in each individual’s interaction with others, and themes such as conscience and righteousness are often taught to children from a young age. In order to promote the proper, humane growth of a person, parents and guardians instill moral guidelines into children and students in their beginning years of education. While discipline and judgemental education continue on through one’s youthful years, the notion tapers off during the adolescent age where most assume that ethical judgement becomes common sense. As adults and supervisors no longer preach the importance of doing the right thing, teens in the high school age may become
Have you ever wondered if our education system has flaws? Well in the article “Against School” written by John Taylor Gatto, Gatto once a teacher explains how public education weakens the youth. He starts off the paper by saying how he taught for 30 years, went through a termination, and personally witnessed almost all of the schooling flaws. In Gatto’s article he lists very noticeable names, such as George W. Bush, George Washington, James Bryant Conant, and H.L Mencken to name a few. Having taught children for so long Gatto believes he has the expert rule in this subject. He proposes that to bring out the best qualities in a child you have to let them make decision and let them take their own risks. Gatto’s mission in this article is to make you consider, if school is actually important.
An education is something that one can keep for a lifetime. Acquiring a good education can affect one’s personal life, one’s community, and one’s entire generation.
What does moral mean? Merriam Webster defines moral as “concerning or relating to what is right and wrong in human behavior.” Morals split actions and thoughts into good or bad. A good behavior is moral, a bad behavior is immoral. Morality is the set of rules that we should obey as productive members of society understanding that moral humans perform “good actions” and immoral people perform “bad actions”. There is ...
After twelve years of school, it took me until now to figure out exactly why I had been there all those years. It was not to torture me by making me learn how to spell but to make sure that my classmates and I got the opportunity to make the most of ourselves. Opportunity that would come from learning as much as possible from books and beginning to see that the world focuses on more than just history and English . I owe my success in life and school to teachers who taught me to spell and to be respectful and responsible. Those quick to argue with me say that school's usefulness is shallow: deeper-real-life experiences truly educate a person. School should be seen not only as a place to study, but also as a place to learn about real life. People cannot depend on experience alone for education just as they cannot solely rely on information from school books to prepare them for life. The lessons, whether from a book or not, learned in school transcend the classroom to real life situations.
This section addresses the matter of power in education. Since education is a larger context in which schools and classrooms are the microelements, understanding the way power residing in the education system can uncover the correlation between power on educational macro and micro scale, education, school and classrooms. To prevail the power of education, the starting points for this section discussion is the function or the capabilities of schools. A section following after looks at the bigger picture of the education structure wherein school, educational institutions and classrooms constituted. These reviews are subsequently followed by another section discussing about teachers’ position within the multi-dimensional entity as such of an education. Vietnamese context and teachers are also included in this section as a backdrop for the subsequent chapters.
Education plays a vital role in shaping tomorrows’ leaders. Not only can we become a better nation by acquiring the skills necessary to be productive members of a civilized society. Increase knowledge to actively achieve and meet challenges that can produce changes in which are productive for attaining business innovations, political and economic objectives.