T
Amitai Etzioni directs
the Institute for
Communitarian Policy
Studies at George
Washington University.
May 2008
Features
Moral Dimensions of Educational Decisions
The essential place of values-rich curricula in the public schools
By Amitai Etzioni
here is a widely held notion that public schools (which, of course, most students
attend) should not teach values. In effect, schools do. Moreover, there are next to
no significant decisions a school administrator or classroom teacher can make that do
not have a normative dimension.
The values at issue are not merely, or even firstly, those
sometimes read over the public address system at the start of the
school day or the six pillars that Michael Josephson of the
Josephson Institute, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit promoting
ethical decision making, has advocated as the foundations of
virtue: trust, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring and good
citizenship.
The values at issue are not all or even mainly these personal
virtues but rather social ones — for instance, dealing with all
people as if they are of equal value; not discriminating on ethnic,
racial or sexual orientation grounds; solving differences in
peaceful ways; and respecting the environment.
Conformist Curricula
The role of values in decision making is most obvious in
formulating the curriculum. Schools are under considerable
pressure from the community to focus on academics, which in
effect means serving the utilitarian, economic futures of pupils.
Parents, school boards and news media that push for higher
academic achievements are not seeking to turn the students into
scholars but to equip them to compete in the marketplace (and in
the competitive college admissions arena) by teaching them
math, writing skills (memos, not poetry), foreign languages and
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so on.
In contrast, schools are, and ought to be, concerned with human and social development,
ensuring graduates are able to work out differences with others verbally and nonabusively; to
walk in the other person’s shoes; to resist temptations to act in unethical ways; and to care
about higher purposes than self. Many curriculum decisions reflect the balance those who run
schools and education systems strike between these two competing set of values, the academic
and the social.
We are all aware of dramatic confrontations about which books to choose and in which ways to
frame a particular teaching outline for a class to follow — for instance, the debate between
those who would use a standard biology textbook to teach evolution and those who would use
books like Of Pandas and People: The Central Question of Biological Origins, which teach
intelligent design.
However, we do not always keep in mind that all selections of books and other materials to be
used in teaching students reflect a choice of values. Take, for instance, the Civil War. It can be
taught as a grand struggle for liberty and equality; as a political strategy for keeping the union
together; as a tragic failure to resolve differences without mass killing and enormous suffering;
or something else. Whatever we choose reflects our values and helps transmit them to the
students.
Education decision makers are understandably reluctant to view these issues as involving
normative choices because framing the decisions in this way forces the question: Whose values
are going to be taught? Instead, decisions often are deliberated and made on other grounds,
such as “this textbook is highly recommended by …” Furthermore, modifications to curricula are
made in terms of “we need to give more room to …” rather than openly reviewing the normative
implications that all books, narratives, songs, plays and course outlines have.
In addition, a notion exists that normative education ought to take place at home or in a
community’s places of worship, not in public school classrooms. Actually, these important
sources of character formation never suffice and normative education in schools cannot be
avoided as there are no educational materials that are normatively neutral and no methods of
teaching that have no moral implications — including the moral relativism communicated by
vain efforts to be neutral.
One should note that (a) there is a considerable normative consensus, for instance, in favor of
environmental protection and an active and informed citizenry, against racial and gender
discrimination, and for peaceful resolution of differences, among quite a few other social moral
values; and (b) schools best focus on developing two essential behavioral or character traits
that lie at the foundation of all normative education: self-discipline and empathy.
Proper character development entails first and foremost acquiring the capacity to control one’s
impulses and to mobilize oneself for acts other than the satisfaction of biological needs and
immediate desires. Workers need such self-control so they can stick to their tasks and adhere
to a work routine that is often not very satisfying by itself. Citizens and community members
need self-control so they will not demand ever-more services while being unwilling to pay taxes
and make contributions to the common good. And self-control makes people more tolerant of
those from different ethnic, racial and political backgrounds.
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When we look at the violent ways people in other countries (and our nation in the past) deal
with personal differences, we realize the importance of instilling in each new generation of
youngsters the capacity to hold impulses in check. (Impulse control is even more essential for a
democratic society than the often-cited prerequisites of being politically informed and voting
regularly. The only reason we can focus on these features of democracy is that we implicitly
assume that character formation is well attended to.)
Disciplinary Lessons
How do we educate for character? Parents and educators often stress the importance of
discipline in character formation. In several public opinion surveys, school administrators and
parents rank a lack of discipline as the No. 1 problem in our schools. They correctly perceive
that in a classroom where students are disorderly and disrespectful, where rules and routines
cannot be developed and maintained, learning is not possible.
Unfortunately, discipline as many people understand it takes on an authoritarian meaning. A
well-disciplined environment often is considered one in which teachers and principals “lay down
the law” and brook no talking back from students, and where students show respect by rising
when a teacher enters the room and speak only when spoken to. Some, have even suggested
schools ought to re-examine the use of corporal punishment for this purpose. Indeed, in a few
states physical punishment is still considered an effective way to maintain discipline. Moreover,
the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a Texas law that authorizes the use of corporal punishment,
short of deadly force.
If discipline is achieved by such authoritarian means, youngsters will behave as long as they
are closely supervised and fear punishment. But as soon as the authorities turn their backs,
such young people are likely to misbehave. Moreover, their resentment at being coerced is
likely to express itself in some form of antisocial behavior. This is because the discipline is
linked to punishment rather than to a commitment to doing what is right and avoiding what is
wrong.
What the pupil — and the future adult — requires is self-discipline, the inner ability to mobilize
and commit to a task he or she believes in and to feel positive — that is, self-rewarded — for
having done so.
Internalization of values occurs in structured environments, but not under authoritarian
conditions. Close, continuous, external supervision and punitive environments are
counterproductive. What is required is a school structure made up of people, rules and
organization of tasks that motivate students by providing clear guidelines. These must be both
firmly upheld and be reasonable and justified, so students can understand and accept the need
to abide by them.
Character formation lays the psychic foundation for one to mobilize to a task and to behave
morally by being able to control impulses and defer gratification. However, character formation
per se does not educate one to specific virtues or values; it is without specific moral content. It
provides the rectitude to tell the truth even if the consequences are unpleasant, but it does not
teach the value of being truthful. It enables a person to refrain from imposing his or her sexual
impulse on an unwilling partner, but it does not teach him or her that it is morally unacceptable
to rape.
Trying to develop character without attention to sharing of values with the young is like trying
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to develop muscles of an athlete without having a particular sport in mind. It follows that if
those who are being educated are to become committed to moral values, youngsters must
acquire not only the capacity to commit — the psychological muscle that moral conduct requires
— but also the values that direct the exercise, the application of moral capacity. To the extent
that the family no longer provides the values, the community turns to schools to teach the
young to tell right from wrong.
Value of Experiences
How do we build up moral commitments? There is one way that far surpasses all others. The
most important social science observation here is that experiences are more effective teachers
than lectures. This is particularly evident in extracurricular