Essay on Public Schools Should Teach Morals and Ethics

Public Schools Should Teach Morals and Ethics 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. The absence of educating morals and ethics in the classroom is actually a method of suppression. By purposely not informing students that they can develop their†¦show more content†¦This benefits the ruling class because a man or woman without morals and ethics is not one to stand up and demand change in the system. The most common way public schooling diffuses any morality in the classroom is by displaying all information as fact, and removing the emotional aspects from each piece of knowledge. This desensitizes the student. It is, indeed, all but impossible to understand that people die in school materials writes Kozol. This desensitization leaves the student without the backbone necessary for a moral and ethical life. If a student leaves his or her twelve to eighteen years in the education system without having seen, heard, or felt the pain and suffering of the homeless, starving and war-torn peoples in the world, this student will not stand up to the government and demand that there be substantial change. Instead, he or she becomes the perfect citizen for our current ruling class: passive and powerless. Another strong method this institution uses to hold the population in check is the power and fear of the word no. We are taught to accept what we are given, and not to challenge what we canno t ourselves provide a better alternative for. This is the idea that we not only should not, but do not possess the moral right to break down any structure, system or machine, until we ourselves in a position to construct aShow MoreRelated Teaching Morals and Ethics in Public Schools Essay903 Words   |  4 PagesTeaching Morals and Ethics in Public Schools The question of whether or not schools should teach ethics and morals is misleading, because ethics and morals are two different things. Websters Dictionary defines ethics as a particular system of principles and rules concerning duty, whether true or false, and morals as motivation based on ideas of right and wrong. 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