Teaching Morality in School

In this Educational Leadership article, Stanford professor William Damon tells how a boy who was caught stealing money from his classmates' backpacks was told that it was "uncooperative behavior" that would make him unpopular with his peers. "We don't want to give your child a self-image as a thief, which could only stigmatize him," a school official said to the boy's mother.

Damon totally disagrees: "By consciously avoiding terms like right, wrong, and stealing... the school rejected moral language that could guide the student throughout his life. The message the school offered the boy was instrumental and amoral: You should avoid actions that will make you unpopular."

            Damon says there is scientific evidence that all children begin life with four innate tendencies:

-   Empathy - Being able to experience another person's pleasure or pain; even infants display this.

-   Fairness - As soon as children start playing with friends, we begin to hear, "That's not fair."

-   Self-control - Very young children are eager to regularize behavior through repetition, rituals and rules.

-   Obligation - Children want to follow the directives and expectations of their caregivers.

But these tendencies can be overridden by anger and other emotions, and children don't always make the best choices when faced with ethical challenges.

This is why it's vital to nurture the innate tendencies with which children enter school. "[T]heir natural empathy must develop into a sustained concern for others," says Damon, "their sense of fairness must grow into a commitment for justice, their desire for self-control must grow into a sense of personal responsibility, and their feeling of obligation must become a determination to contribute to noble purposes beyond the self. Without this kind of growth, the child's early capacities may atrophy or take on grotesque forms."

Damon says many schools fail to speak forthrightly to students about moral issues, especially when it comes to cheating, which is shockingly common. He suggests four messages on this issue:

-   Cheating is wrong because it gives the cheater an unfair advantage over students who don't cheat.

-   Cheating violates teacher-student trust.

-   Cheating breaks school rules that are necessary to preserve social order and individual rights.

-   Cheating is dishonest behavior and no one wants to become a person who is known (by self and others) as dishonest.

These messages all connect to students' innate moral sense and help guide them in moments of temptation. "When a teacher conveys such principles to a student," says Damon, "the teacher conveys both an understanding of how decent societies work and a program for a life of good character."

            "Our research shows that youngsters learn moral truths by seeing them enacted in the lives of real people and by reflecting on how this informs their own search for direction," says Damon. He urges schools to teach morality and civics through vivid examples close to students' everyday lives, stories of morally admirable people, community service, and thinking about careers in helping professions. This approach is far better than dry abstract principles, a litany of "do nots", and parrot-like recitation of virtuous words like honesty, tolerance, respect, and courage.

"The Bridge to Character" by William Damon in Educational Leadership, February 2010 (Vol. 67, #5, p. 36-39) http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership.aspx; Damon can be reached at wdamon@stanford.edu.