Morals and Values
“Before talking of grit and resilience, we should be challenging our children with the fundamental questions about how they live their lives” Peter Tait
The inspiration for this blog came from this article, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationopinion/11463380/We-should-be-teaching-morals-and-ethics-in-our-schools.html
which we felt was so relevant to pedagogy.
In our Psychology classes we often tackle issues such as stereotyping, altruism (or bystanderism), empathy, aggression and a wide scope of mental disorders. Following the IB curriculum means that we are urged to tackle such topics primarily on an academic level. We diligently guide our students to understand and analyze the varied landscape of theories and research into these topics and, in doing so, could quite feasibly end up with a cold, abstract understanding of these pertinent issues. In doing this, we run the risk of failing to take advantage of the inherent opportunities to have meaningful, human conversations with our students about their value systems and how these are reflected in their own day-to-day realities. We run the risk of seeing our students as numbers or exam results rather than as the landscape of the future. We lose the opportunity for debate, constructive conversation and the acceptance of differences.
For this reason, we have made a movement within the department to harness the opportunities for student reflection – not only on academic learning – but also on the reflection of their own morals and value systems. When learning about theories of altruism, for example, we have shared and shown real-life stories and allowed time for students to reflect on how these might be mirrored in their own realities. We bring in the wider context of school-based and extra-curricular service activities and encourage the students to think about their motivations in participating in these, as well as analyze the real impact these make.
Whilst the article itself proposes quite a stark view of life amongst pupils in the UK, and we are not proposing that students at Markham live the same reality, we propose that there is little room for denying that our students will continue to benefit from open dialogue focused on values and morality, ethics and empathy, respect and inter-cultural understanding.