Teaching Morals in Public Schools

In this essay, the author

• Analyzes how a fellow citizen is irked by the kids who tramp down the grass as they cut across the lawn of her family's new home. teaching morals in public school could only result in the betterment of society.
• Explains that american public schools started walking away from their moral educators about a generation ago, around the 1960's. they feared being accused of imposing religion or "indoctrinating" children.
• Explains how schools were expected to reflect the best values of their communities in the 1950's. teachers explained with certainty the difference between right and wrong. text books stressed high moral standards.

• Analyzes how a fellow citizen is irked by the kids who tramp down the grass as they cut across the lawn of her family's new home. teaching morals in public school could only result in the betterment of society.
• Explains that american public schools started walking away from their moral educators about a generation ago, around the 1960's. they feared being accused of imposing religion or "indoctrinating" children.
• Explains how schools were expected to reflect the best values of their communities in the 1950's. teachers explained with certainty the difference between right and wrong. text books stressed high moral standards.
• Explains that the national defense education act induced international competition in terms of "brainpower" and "technical expertise." the old curriculum was stripped of moral justifications and the separation between public and private realms became common currency in american society.
• Analyzes the current situation between public schools and teaching morals, stating that moral education involves explicit instruction, exhortation, and training.
• Explains that most liberals dismiss the call for moral education as a "reiteration of nineteenth-century morality, complete with appeals for restoration of school prayer."
• Argues that an emphasis on morals will lead to indoctrination, but if teachers give reasons for their moral teaching, based on universal principle undergirding the educational endeavor, and present them as provisional, it would not be permitted.
• Argues that americans want their public schools to teach and reinforce civic and personal virtues with character education. a morality code should be recreated to be taught to students.
• Suggests creating an educational community in which all are bound by transcendent ideals and common commitments to an articulated sense of the public good for which public education exists.
• Opines that teachers need not address all moral issues, but only those virtues and ideals that are proper to the functioning of an educational community.
• Analyzes how tom lickona of cortland feels that a moral generation would see less materialism and greed, which are the driving forces behind public scandals.
• Cites coles, robert, csongradi, carolyn, grant, gerald, and nea today.
• Analyzes healy, melissa, herbert, wray, and smith, eleanor. the new moral classroom.