Ethics and Education

Ethics and Morals are two important words everyone knows, but which very few truly
understand. Ethics is defined, in Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, as the discipline
dealing with what is good and what is bad. Morals are defined, in the same dictionary, as
those principles of right and wrong in behavior. For Kozol in The Night Is Dark and I Am Far
From Home, ethics and morals have similar definitions but extend to include a sense of
compassion for others. I agree with his argument that the purpose of schooling is to educate
an ethical human being: a person who not only lives his life by facts and knowledge but also
by ethics and morals.

The need for schools to address ethics and morals is important…show more content…
Since in school are where children interact most often with any adult, it should be standard
for schools to have ethics and morals in their curricula.

However, the decision of what ethics and whose morals to include in curricula poses a
problem for many schools. With so many different ways of thought and senses of morality,
the ability to decide on one standardized set of ethics and morality proves to be almost
impossible. The decision is also difficult since morality at times is synonymous with religion
and deciding on a particular set of morality can be interpreted as favoring a certain religion
within a school. Other problems with this system are a teacher's possible conflict with certain
ethical and moral issues they may have to convey to their students. What if a teacher does not
believe in a certain ethical guideline in the curriculum or what if they do not believe an
ethical decision is required for a certain discipline? A system of ethics which encompasses
many beliefs, yet does not isolate one exactly, is the only useful method in a school.