Ethics and Education :: Free Essays Online

Ethics and Education Before one decides whether or not morals should be a standard part of American public school education, one first must figure out what the purpose of education is. This is a difficult question to answer. Some would say that the purpose of education is to learn facts. Others would add to that and say that one's education should include facts and ideas. Perhaps the goal of education is to create well rounded people who are prepared to face the world around them. Perhaps education should be the pursuit of truth, however, in order to pursue truth, one must also define verity. How do you say which, or who's morals are true or untrue? An important aspect of defining education is deciding what areas of a person's education must be acquired in school, and what areas should be learned elsewhere. The area of morals is sticky in this respect. It is very difficult to know where to draw the line. When deciding this one must figure out where the responsibility of parents ends and where responsibility begins for teachers. One could argue that teachers have the task of being educators and parents the job of care-giving, so therefore all learning, including morals should occur within the schools. This is difficult to say though, because the line between teaching and care-giving is also fuzzy. Part of care-giving is making sure that one's child does not hurt him or her self or others, and that involves teaching. Similarly, part of teaching is making sure that the child is able to learn, which involves care-giving. In modern day society children spend a very large percentage of their time in school, and perhaps to enough time at home for their parents to effectively instill all the morals they need to learn in order to be ethical human beings. Because of this it could be argued that it is the responsibility of schools to teach morals in order for their to be any kind of ethical society at all. By not actively teaching morals it is possible that schools are passively teaching to be immoral. Another question to be raised is whether or not morals need to be learned in order ro function in other areas of education. If this is the case, then another question is whether or not the schools should be responsible for instilling those morals, or if they should expect the Ethics and Education :: Free Essays Online Ethics and Education Before one decides whether or not morals should be a standard part of American public school education, one first must figure out what the purpose of education is. This is a difficult question to answer. Some would say that the purpose of education is to learn facts. Others would add to that and say that one's education should include facts and ideas. Perhaps the goal of education is to create well rounded people who are prepared to face the world around them. Perhaps education should be the pursuit of truth, however, in order to pursue truth, one must also define verity. How do you say which, or who's morals are true or untrue? An important aspect of defining education is deciding what areas of a person's education must be acquired in school, and what areas should be learned elsewhere. The area of morals is sticky in this respect. It is very difficult to know where to draw the line. When deciding this one must figure out where the responsibility of parents ends and where responsibility begins for teachers. One could argue that teachers have the task of being educators and parents the job of care-giving, so therefore all learning, including morals should occur within the schools. This is difficult to say though, because the line between teaching and care-giving is also fuzzy. Part of care-giving is making sure that one's child does not hurt him or her self or others, and that involves teaching. Similarly, part of teaching is making sure that the child is able to learn, which involves care-giving. In modern day society children spend a very large percentage of their time in school, and perhaps to enough time at home for their parents to effectively instill all the morals they need to learn in order to be ethical human beings. Because of this it could be argued that it is the responsibility of schools to teach morals in order for their to be any kind of ethical society at all. By not actively teaching morals it is possible that schools are passively teaching to be immoral. Another question to be raised is whether or not morals need to be learned in order ro function in other areas of education. If this is the case, then another question is whether or not the schools should be responsible for instilling those morals, or if they should expect the