Blog #14

The ethics that define us as a person come from many places- movies, television, our parents and peers- and help us figure out what is right and what is wrong. Even without any effort, teachers will naturally pass on many of their values and ethical beliefs on to their students. But should schools teach students ethics directly to students?

I believe that it is important to make sure students have some grasp of the ethical beliefs that span our nation, and of those of other cultures, but this idea presents a myriad of problems. Teaching ethics raises the same issue as the idea of teaching religion in public schools: not everyone has the same beliefs. How do you sort through the differences between cultures in a country that recieves millions of immigrants every year? Not all peoples within the United States are white Anglo-Americans with Protestant morals. For schools to teach ethics correctly, they would have to represent all of the cultures that reside within the United States, but this is a daunting task to say the least.

For schools to properly teach ethics in schools, they have to realize that parents teach their children more about ethics and morals than any other source. Any ethics class would have to balance this fact with the
knowledge that many students possess different levels of "ethical knowldege" when they begin this class. Also, many subjects, such as religion, and politics, that greatly affect ethical beliefs are deeply personal and cannot really be taught by a teacher. They can only be learned.

The idea of a high school ethics class is a good one, but poses many problems that schools would have to work out before adding Ethics to their cirriculum. However, the advantages to students being exposed to and learning about ethical beliefs that are common throughout the nation are great. Creating an ethics class for high school would be difficult, but is important because it could help unify our nation.