Teaching Morality

Teaching Morality

In The Night is Dark and I am Far From Home, Jonathan Kozol writes that "The first goal and primary function of the U.S. public school is not to educate good people, but good citizens." (1). He implies that the public school has no function but to turn out people who will vote, pay their taxes, and follow the nations laws without protest. If this is so, and I believe that it is, should the philosophy of the public school system be changed to produce morally upright individuals? I believe that schools should try to produce the best people they can. Many people argue that morals should be taught at home, but that isn't good enough. Some say that good citizens make good people, but I say that that isn't the case.

Many people who believe that morals should be taught at home do not fully examine the times that we are living in. Forty years ago most children were growing up in two parent homes with stay-at-home mothers. At that time, there was ample opportunity to instill morals and ethics into children. They could be told what was right and what was wrong, instead of taking their chances and finding out for themselves. Also, there wasn't as much violence and immorality around them.

Today, however, we are living in the era of single parenthood or two income households. Many children are "latchkey kids," coming home to empty households. Mom and Dad, if they both live under the same roof, might not get home until late at night, when their children are busy with homework or friends, and they themselves are to frazzled from the day's problems to carry on a lengthy conversation any way. Beavis and Butt-head, gangsta rap, and gang leaders are all too often a kid's primary caretakers. This isn't to say that a child who g...

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... it, causing my right eye to drift up and out. This "good citizen" that I mentioned could always get laughs out of his friends by imitating the way that I see and walk. My hip and eye problems are not something that I usually think about or choose to dwell upon because they've never stopped my from doing anything that I've truly wanted to do, but every time this guy would make fun of me in my presents, I would feel my cheeks flame red-hot with embarrassment. This guy may have been able to pass as a good citizen, but his acts were not those of a good person.

I must not be the only person that something like this has happened to. There must be many people who were made to feel as embarrassed as I was. However, if we could develop a system that teaches someone how to be a good person, while maintaining the qualities of a good citizen, this doesn't have to happen again.