There’s no denying that ethical behaviour, or the lack of it, has been front and centre in the news of late. That’s the same news our kids read, watch and talk about with each other every day.
One province, Alberta, has taken up the challenge with an optional junior secondary school ethics course.
The stated objective of the course is “to develop an understanding of community values, to foster student commitment to common ethical values such as respect, responsibility, fairness/justice, tolerance, honesty, kindness, forgiveness, commitment to democratic ideals, and to develop the ability to recognize consequences of making ethical decisions.”
Not much wrong with that and perhaps quite timely.
Growing up for most of us “back in the day” was not so confusing that we could not sort the “goodies” from the “baddies.”
The “goodies” in movies and on TV pretty much behaved with dignity, respected the law and usually wore white hats.
The “baddies” lied, cheated, were violent and had no concept of right or wrong. They stole without a second thought and were seedy-looking individuals who wore black hats.
Easy to spot the difference.
It was all reasonably simple, and we did not need a course in ethical behaviour to understand who was worthy of our respect and who was not.
True, our access to information was limited to what the adult establishment thought it was wise for us to know. We were, compared to today’s kids, relatively innocent about the ways of the world.Our experience of ethical confusion was limited to simple matters like relationships and who was cool and who was not. We did not trouble ourselves about the bigger issues such as crime, drugs, politics or moral ambiguity in high places.
Borderline misbehaviour was rolling marbles down the aisle at the movies during the mushy scenes.
Our social ethics were defined pretty much by the simple requirement to “do the right thing.” Kids who did “the wrong thing” were ostracized — at least for a while.
Perhaps I am idealizing it all now, but growing up these days must be a lot more confusing for our kids.
Kids could not be blamed for wondering if a notion of ethical behaviour, doing “the right thing” has been replaced by situational ethics — what you can get away with, deny, profit from or straight-out lie about.
Even the most abominable behaviour is either rationalized or justified and, if the perpetrator is caught out, apology or shameless explanation suffices.
Alberta Education has obviously given some thought to all this and so, as well as offering an optional grades 7-9 ethic program, describes its kindergarten to Grade 12 social studies program as follows:
“By applying critical thinking skills, students determine diverse points of view, perspective and bias, and consider the ethics of decisions and actions. Students also engage in problem-solving and conflict resolution with an awareness of the ethical consequences of decision making.”
The danger for teachers is that any discussion of ethics could stray into morality, and from there into religion and the kind of perspective on what kids see and hear going on around them that many kids are not likely to accept anyway.
Classroom sermons are, as they should be, a “no no” in our multicultural multi-ethnic mosaic.
Even so, and given the relentless barrage of examples in the news and entertainment media of successful, even celebrated unethical behaviour, it might be time for a look at the Alberta program and the opportunity it provides for some objectively structured classroom discussion about the rightness and wrongness of certain actions and about the consequences of cultural and societal acceptance of what we know is unacceptable.
Our kids are wondering.
Geoff Johnson is a retired superintendent of schools.
