Approaches to moral education

2.2. Approaches to moral education

This portion of the paper outlines some of the instructional practices to moral education, including direct instruction, moral dilemma discussion, role-playing and service learning.

2.2.1. Direct instruction

Being an integral stakeholder of education, teachers play a part in articulating the nation and school values. The classroom is a place where teachers share their common humanity with the pupils (Pring, 2001), while teacher as the role model to students implicitly

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and explicitly transmit values through their teaching methods, relationships with students and colleagues and the learning environment they construct (Cooper, Burman, Ling, Razdevsek-Pucko, & Stephenson, 1998). As teaching is a social practice that embodies the values of the teacher, students may be inherently influenced by the teacher, thus teachers have the responsibility to teach the students directly the right moral values (Halstead & Taylor, 2000).

In the course of teaching, teachers demonstrate and transfer their principles and values to students, helping them to make sense of the world. At times, students may need clear and direct moral guidance and explanations from the teachers to know what exactly what certain value means and why it is important (Lickona, 1991). Direct teaching can explicitly and intentionally promulgates the desirable values to students, raising their awareness to the importance of the sound values.

2.2.2. Moral dilemma discussion

The moral dilemma discussion method has its basis on Kohlberg’s moral development theory. Moral development goes through the identified six stages in an invariant sequence, meaning one does not skip stages to get to a higher stage, thus one will have to resolve the cognitive dissonance in order to be able to proceed from one stage to the next (Crain, 1985;

Kohlberg, 1981; Lockwood, 2009; Nucci, 2008). If one is unable to comprehend the moral reasoning at one stage, one may not be able to reach a higher level of moral maturity. Thus, it could be possible that one becomes physically mature but morally immature. Kohlberg emphasised the discussion of moral dilemma issues to promote moral reasoning to push one through the stages of moral development. One of the widely known moral dilemmas used by Kohlberg in his research was the “Heinz steals the drug” issue, which illustrated whether the poor Heinz should steal the newly invented yet expensive drug to save his sickly wife (Crain, 1985; Gilligan, 1993; Kohlberg, 1981; Lockwood, 2009).

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Teacher-led or group-based dilemma discussions assist in moral reasoning through exposing the students to various difficult moral conflicts and eventually lead to ethical decision-making (Halstead & Taylor, 2000; Vezzuto, 2004). Seldom do students face moral dilemmas in life; the hypothetical moral situations raise the students’ moral awareness, challenge their existing value system, engaging them to carry out moral reasoning (Lickona, 1991). Discussions give the students the opportunities to articulate the value systems they possess and express the ways their values guide their behaviours (Lockwood, 2009).

Guidance from teachers and competent peers could help students to attain a higher level of moral maturity by presenting a moral reasoning stage higher than the students’ (Halstead &

Taylor, 2000; Vezzuto, 2004). Discussions also encourage perspective-taking, teaching student to respect diverse and even minority views, weigh the different viewpoints thoughtfully to reach an agreement harmoniously (Halstead & Taylor, 2000).

2.2.3. Role-playing

Children engage in role-playing everyday when they socialise or interact with other children, informally learn to make sense of the surrounding activities and have understanding of others’ feelings (Stauh, 1971). Role-playing is often scripted, thus providing a non-threatening situation for students to act out the moral scenarios (Day, 2002; Lockwood, 2009).

This approach enables students to extend beyond superficial thinking to assume social roles, not only to identify and demonstrate values, but also to put themselves in others’ shoes to perceive matters from another perspective, so as to understand others’ plights and gain a more balanced view of matters for sound moral judgement (Cooper, Burman, Ling, Razdevsek-Pucko & Stephenson, 1998; Day, 2002; Lickona, 1991; Lockwood, 2009). The enjoyable process involves both cognitive and affective components of moral development when students work out the matter from the standpoint of the distressed party and empathise with

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the victims. Empathy is a central emotional response in role-playing, whereby one appropriates one’s feeling to other’s situation than one’s own (Vitz, 1990). Through role-taking, students develop their social sensitivity and empathy for others. The other students, as the audience, too may develop a sense of empathy as they observe how the characters engage in values decision-making, act upon the values and the consequences of the moral actions (Day, 2002; Lockwood, 2009). With guidance and induction from adults or peers, students can have a better understanding of the predicament of the ‘victim’ and are more likely to provide assistance, advancing a step forward to putting desirable values into practice (Stauh, 1971), or extending the empathetic feeling to general human experience to form moral codes of conduct (Day, 2002).

2.2.4. Service learning

Service learning, a form of experiential learning, engages students with the wider community, enabling them to put their value convictions into action (Hill & Steward, 1999).

The approach provides students a structured experience to demonstrate civics responsibility to assess and meet the needs of the community as a team (Butin, 2003; Vezzuto, 2004). In the event of serving the community, students will be challenged with complex and ambiguous moral situations that require them to reflect, evaluate and make decision based on their value systems, which could help to develop their moral competency (Butin, 2003). These personal experiences in real-life situations enhance the students’ moral reasoning skills and nurture students to be a social responsible being. In Eyler and Giles’ (1999) study, students who actively participated in service learning perceived themselves to appreciate the community more, become more tolerant to others, and had acquired leadership and communication skills (as cited in Hinck & Brandell, 1999). In addition, students who engage in service learning are required to keep a self-reflection journal to record experiences, observation and thoughts. The

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reflection process raises the students’ self-awareness, enables them to connect to the inner thoughts and internalise values, contributing to character development (Hill & Steward, 1999).