Building An Ethical School

A Practical Response To The Moral Crisis In Schools

Robert J. Starratt

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2005
• Print ISBN: 9780750700849
• eBook ISBN: 9781135722623
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

The author argues for much greater attention to ethical education and responds to sceptics who say that it can't be done in the face of a pluralistic secular society badly fragmented over values. Seeking always for themes and issues that unite rather than divide, the author provides a conceptual foundation for ethical education broad enough for building consensus among teachers and parents, yet focused enough to provide guidance for highly specific learning activities. The second half of the book takes the reader through a carefully devised series of steps by which a school community might proceed in building their ethical school. The final chapter reminds of the many difficulties to be met along the way, but offers encouragement to strengthen the resolve of the school community. The book concludes with two helpful appendices: the first provides detailed information on exiting initiatives already underway in ethical education, the second offers an annotated bibliography of books and essays which are available for those educators who need or want to read more on the topic of ethical education.

Chapter 1
Building a What?

In a nearby school three eighth graders are overheard rehearsing ‘today's problem with adults’:

‘What do they know about our kind of music anyway?’

‘Yeah! You'd think they never had sex ‘n’ stuff in their own lives, the way they put down our music. ’

‘They can't standhaving young people expressin’ their own feelings. Like, we're just supposed to be like them. ’

‘Did you hear what Joey's parents did! They took his whole CD collection away from him. They go to one of those weird churches where they preach against kids’ music. ’

‘Maria's parents won't let her go to the school dance, for cripes sakes. ‘Fraid she'll get raped or somethin’. They told her the way kids dance is suggestive. What do they think dancin’ is supposedto be, anyway! ’

Whether the topic is sex or alcohol, or some other form of experimental recreation, youngsters talking among themselves tend to reject many norms of conventional ethical behavior. On the other hand, adults themselves are not altogether agreed on what should be allowed for other adults, let alone for children. Hence a proposal to engage in ethical education—to build a thoroughgoing school climate, culture, and program that promotes ethical learning—may appear to the optimist a bit risky, and to most, outright insanity.

In societies made up of diverse religious and cultural traditions, getting people to agree on the proper ethical response to a situation is difficult, and in some cases, impossible. In societies with strong traditions of separation between secular governments and religious bodies, there is an added fear that teaching moral and ethical values in state supported schools will necessarily involve the state in supporting a form of religious orthodoxy, or even simply in supporting belief in a transcendental being who rules the universe and who is the ground of all moral imperatives. Fearing the controversy and animosity which might result from attempting to promote an explicit ethical stand, school administrators and teachers tacitly and tactfully avoid ethical discussions.

Besides the concern that introducing ethics in schools would result in conflict and controversy among widely divergent ethical viewpoints, there is another concern felt by a smaller number of parents and educators. This concern is grounded in the belief that discussions about ethical issues do not belong in schools at all, but rather belong in homes and churches. Their argument is not based on the divisiveness issue. Rather, these people believe that there is a chasm between objective, scientific knowledge, and subjective ethical preferences and religious beliefs. In their minds, ethical principles are based on values, not on facts; ethics reflect cultural traditions, religious socialization, and personal preferences, not rigorous scientific proof; morality is somewhat like etiquette and social mores, acquired by socialization and example, not by logical argument. The importance of learning ethical behavior is not denied; the school is simply not the place to teach ethics. The school can teach obedience to laws and rules that guide public life, but there is no need to go into ethical reasons behind laws and rules. Even the legal profession no longer bothers with that.

Still others would have problems with the effort to build ethical schools, not so much on the grounds of avoiding controversy or because the teaching of ethics belongs in the home and with religious authorities, but on more pragmatic grounds: we simply do not have the time to give. Schools are already falling behind, many contend, in their primary job of teaching basic skills in language, science, and numeracy, let alone developing critical thinking skills for lifelong learning. There is talk of the need to increase the length of the school day and of the school year to improve academicachievement. If we are not getting the job done in academics, how can we afford to divert time and resources away from academics to attend to ethics?

There is yet another obstacle to building an ethical school, one that is both subtle, and, perhaps because it is rarely articulated, the most difficult to overcome. It is the growing indifference to the need for a common ethic. What used to be considered ethically objectionable is now acceptable, whether we are talking about casual sex, deceit in advertising, subtle forms of bribery of public officials, violations of contractual agreements, minor pilfering of company supplies, street violence, or illegal drug use. Driven by a relentless pursuit of material accumulation, recreational thrills, and a self-centered desire for power and status, more and more adults have accepted a privatized ethic of social Darwinism, where the individual is pitted against everyone else in an aggressive pursuit of self-interest. Normally this attitude is understated, rather than put in its more extreme forms: ‘Look after yourself first, ‘cause nobody else will’. ‘That's simply the way business is done around here.’ ‘I’m not technically breaking the law, so what's the problem?’ ‘So it's against the law, but no one is getting hurt; look around you and see how many people are getting away with it. ’

Those who hold these attitudes usually restrict their activities to minor ethical or legal infractions. They want to appear to be following the rules, after all. They have no concern, however, for holding their children to any ethical standard except the law of survival:

Just teach the kids how to get good grades and test scores so they can get into a good college and get on with the real business of life. It's a dog-eat-dog world out there, and they have to learn how to compete in that world. Life will teach them the tough lessons of how to take care of themselves.

Finally, there are some who might support the need for ethical education, but are wary of attempting it because, in their minds, teachers are not competent to teach ethics. Few teachers in the schools have ever had a course in ethics. If we demand that teachers know mathematics or biology before teaching those subjects, how can we maintain a consistent demand for professional quality among our teachers when we ask them to attend to ethical concerns with no professional training in that area? Furthermore, teachers themselves exhibit the diversity of ethical positions found in public life on many important ethical issues. How can we expect the children to make sense out of people teaching them different ethical positions?

It might appear, then, that an effort to build an ethical school is doomed to failure at the outset. It is precisely because the task appears so daunting that this book has been written. The task promises challenges, no doubt about it, but the need to develop the ethical environment in schools is so great that we have to marshal the resources to bring it about. We will attempt answers to the above objections as the book unfolds, answers that indicate that the objections are not insurmountable. Indeed, we shall see that those objections do not stand up well to scrutiny. For now, we need to take stock of our present situation in schools and grasp the enormity of the task facing us. That task is no less than the task of reversing a massive deterioration in the ethical life of our society.

Facing the Problem

In the United States, information about increases in murder, rape, muggings, child abuse and other domestic violence, drug addiction, drug related crime, white-collar crime, corporate violation of tax, environmental, and price rigging laws is cumulatively depressing, if not terrifying. Children growing up in this kind of a society have to wonder whether the daily media reports of all of the above do not indicate that this kind of behavior is the norm, rather than the exception in human social living. Should they be blamed if, perceiving the world filled with these kinds of predators, they begin to espouse the ethic of the jungle, or, what may be worse, despair?

Besides the violence, depravity and deception found in public life, children and youth encounter appeals to the most self-indulgent, childish, manipulative and pornographic fantasies in the entertainment and advertising media. Children are exposed daily to television shows depicting violence, murder, and casual sex. They watch commercials in which sex is used to sell everything from beer to bath soap, from shaving cream to automobiles.

Parents do not always present uplifting ethical messages to youth. Rather, children see examples of cheating on taxes, getting parking tickets fixed, infidelities to the marriage bond, heavy drinking in the home, driving after heavy drinking, ethnic and racial jokes, occasional outbursts of physical violence in the home, deceitful and abusive language in the home, scapegoating and abusive labeling of people in the community. Unfortunately, they also encounter times when their own personal bond with the parent is fractured by anger, disinterest, manipulation, or even flagrant abuse.

Whether or not things are worse in the present day than in earlier times, the reporting of them brings the enormity of the problem to our awareness. However, with refinements in statistical record-keeping, we can be reasonably certain that a marked increase in the breakdown of ethical behavior in both the home and in public life over the past thirty years has occurred.

These statistics indicate that youth have been affected in this general breakdown. The incidence of murder, rape, drug abuse, theft, and physical violence among youth has increased dramatically over the past twenty years.¹In both urban and suburban communities, child and adolescent sexual activity is almost taken for granted. What used to be considered abusive and vulgar scatological language can be heard among youngsters in the corridors of primary and middle schools, not to mention in comments to teachers. In many urban schools, students are required to pass through metal detector frames in order to enforce the prohibition against carrying guns and knives in school. Besides violence between gangs, we hear about youth harassing homeless people, or committing random acts of violence against those of another race. Most urban centers are awash in graffiti on buildings, buses and sidewalks, spray-painted there by young people. In several instances, a student on the way to or from school has been killed for not surrendering his or her sneakers or leather coat to a classmate. Among suburban high school students, drinking heavily throughout the weekend is a common practice, sometimes also involving drugs and sex.

The awareness that children and young people have always tested the limits of the boundaries adults established must be kept in perspective. Whether it was smoking behind the barn or using ‘swear words’, kids would get some thrill and satisfaction at doing something ‘naughty’ or trying out some kind of adult behavior. A certain amount of sexual experimentation has always gone on among children and adolescents. Kids lied to their parents, stayed out too late with their friends, had fights, bullied other kids, excluded other kids from their circle, made fun of handicapped people. To be sure, most adults can remember their youthful antics with a smile. Children are rarely ‘good’ for a whole day, let alone for a whole week. Reminding ourselves of that can help us avoid a kind of sanctimonious indignation over the actions of today's youth.

On the other hand, we have to look squarely at the real damage they are doing to themselves and to the community. Although some of their activities can be labeled as a harmless testing of limits, pranks and boisterous behavior, much of what we see now is vicious and destructive. What is worse is the assertion by some youngsters that adults have no rightto tell them what they can and cannot do. It is the denial that there are normsthat are being violated; they are responsible to community authorities and to principles of behavior that go beyond their whimsy or desire. As more and more young people grow up with a disregard for community standards of behavior, our society is in danger of descending into ethical anarchy.

Fortunately, there are signs that educators and parents are beginning to address the problem. We are finding more schools which have intentionally and programmatically begun to inculcate values of honesty, respect, responsibility and tolerance.²This book is intended for those educators and parents and school board/school council members who want to address the problem in a comprehensive way.

Response to Objectors

Let us suppose that we are sufficiently concerned about the problem of children and youth growing up with weak ethical foundations, how do we respond to the objections cited at the beginning of this chapter against the possibility of building an ethical school? Those objections are

1. in a pluralistic society, we cannot get agreement over which ethics to teach;
2. the teaching of ethics belongs in the family and the religious community, not in the school;
3. given the demands for time and resources to improve the academic performance of schools, we cannot take time and resources away from that primary task to channel into ethical education;
4. many parents no longer see any practical use for ethical education either in the home or in the school;
5. teachers cannot be involved in ethical education when they have had no preparation in it.

Let us try to answer those objections.

First of all, granted that we live in a pluralistic society, and that we value the diversity such pluralism lends to public life, we can nonetheless agree upon very basic values which schools should teach. Thomas Lickona argues for the two basic values of respect and responsibility.³ Few people would argue that every person is entitled to a basic respect for his or her person, reputation and property. No one has the right to deny a person that basic respect. Likewise one should respect himself or herself. No one should heedlessly endanger her or his own life. Lickona extends this basic virtue of respect to the environment, that whole web of life that sustains us. This calls us to act sensitively toward our fragile ecosystem. Respect is the root principle behind many ethical ‘don'ts’. Because we respect ourselves, other people and the environment we should not do X, Y and Z.

Responsibility emphasizes our positive obligations to care for each other. A sense of responsibility urges us to think of others, to help others in need, to honor a contract with another person, to be loyal and trustworthy. Whereas the virtue of respect counsels us not to engage in racial stereotyping, the virtue of responsibility counsels us to build community with all people. Not only am I obliged not to hurt someone; I am obliged to care for them. The question of how much I am obliged to care will always arise, and the general response is that I should care as much as I am able, even if that means only a smile or a gentle greeting. The responsibility ethic reminds us that it is not enough to avoid doing harm. We are obliged to do good.

Fox and DeMarco argue for three general moral principles which everyone is obliged to honor.⁴They are:

1. do no harm;
2. do not be unfair;
3. do not violate another's freedom.

Fox and DeMarco add to these general principles a ‘prima facie restriction’.⁵The prima facie restriction means that other things being equal, the principle must be honored. When a principle is in conflict with another principle, or a particular case involves highly unusual circumstances, it may be overridden. However, the burden of proof is on the one requesting the exception. Thus, in the case of someone suffering an extremely painful irreversible illness, we are not obliged to use heroic or unusual measures to keep that person alive. But the burden of proof is on the person requesting the exemption to show that the illness is, under most circumstances, irreversible.

In speaking about their framing of the principles in negative statements, Fox and DeMarco indicate that negative statements tell us what we are bound to avoid doing. This does not imply that there are no positive obligations. With positive principles, such as the obligation to care for others, it is hard to determine when and how much they apply in particular cases. Thus, parents have a duty to care for their children, but other people are not obliged to care for them in the same way. However, all people are obliged not to harm them.

Thomas Green speaks of an education that nurtures conscience.⁶ Although he conceives of conscience as unitary and personal, Green proposes that conscience has five voices: the call of craft, the call of membership, the call of sacrifice (or duty), the call of memory, and the call of imagination. A mature conscience calls us to integrity in our work (the call of craft). It reminds us that sloppy and careless work is undeserving of us and serves others poorly. It causes us to feel guilt or shame or embarrassment over a job poorly done, over careless attention to the simple things involved in conducting the business of everyday life.

The conscience of membership reminds us of our bonds and responsibilities to the community we belong to. By asserting the primacy of the community over the individual, Green emphasizes that education for a public life is the way, simultaneously, to form one's private conscience. Robert Coles, in a reflective insight bears this out. He recalls his father telling his br...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• List of Figures
• Chapter 1: Building a What?
• Chapter 2: Moral Problematics in Schools
• Chapter 3: Foundational Qualities of an Ethical Person
• Chapter 4: A Multidimensional Ethical Framework
• Chapter 5: What Might an Ethical School Look Like?
• Chapter 6: Building an Ethical School Launching the Project
• Chapter 7: Building an Ethical School: Designing a Plan
• Chapter 8: Building an Ethical School: Implementation Phases
• Chapter 9: Reality Versus the Plan
• Appendix I: Selected Resources in Ethical Education
• Appendix II: Annotated Bibliography