Transforming Moral Education (Martin)

 

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Transforming Moral Education (Martin)

Context

This in an article that was written in 1987 and yet I believe the topic of moral and love in education is as relevant and “anomalous” today as it was more than three decades ago. In this article Martin presents strategies that have the purpose to foster “generative” love in education and discusses the need to rethink about moral education and education itself. She explains that education should not only be concerned about developing intellectual virtues, but feelings, emotions, values and attitudes that are necessary to preserve our own and other species. Many educators feel that education’s most important purpose is to foster knowledge without considering that morality influences “procedural knowledge” the “how” we act and use that knowledge in the right way.

Some of the reasons why “generative love” and morality seem so abnormal in education include:

• Education is based on male attributes (rationality, analytical, interested on things and science vs. people and emotions).
• Emotions are considered to belong to the private and not public scene.
• Emotions are associated with unproductivity.
• Men are associated with productive/intellectual tasks and women with reproductive; emotional tasks and society placing move value to production and men.

Innovation in teaching and learning

Learning to care, “generative love”, morality are even nowadays “new” or “unnatural” concepts. At the time, as now, it’s difficult to measure and link the impact of these concepts to student’s success. However, if we start by seeing morality, empathy, love as survival skills, we can agree about their importance in education and look for ways to foster them throughout the curriculum, especially as we know that love is not always learned at home.

Especially in higher-education settings, most educators would agree that is not our job to teach values, attitudes and ethics. But if we consider Martin’s and other frameworks and research on the topic, we realize that ethics guide procedural knowledge. It’s also important to acknowledge that highly educated people, are not always aware of their society, the injustice that others face and how our decisions affect each other’s and all species fate. This is because we haven’t learned it in our traditional education systems, so our job as educators and innovators is to rethink what education means, if ethical and moral traits should be based-gender, and ways in which we can include morality in education as a way to survive.

Questions to the author

• How can educators gain confidence and learn how to include morality as part of their teaching?
• How can educators teach morality and the importance of paying attention to feelings, values, believes to students with diverse backgrounds?
• What can parents support moral approaches to education?

Implications for a Business School

• Include morality/values in the mission statement and in the entire curriculum.
• Train professors on the importance of teaching morality as part of their curriculum.
• Create spaces inside and outside the classroom to discuss ways in which students can practice empathy towards each other’s, share their emotions and values.
• Redefine the definition of a successful professional to one that includes a person with morals who cares about others and the environment.
• Encourage students to think and design strategies to overcome bias against people and ethical topics, and ways in which companies can support work-life balance.
• Organize ethics (this includes topics related to inclusivity, discrimination, decolonization’s, equity, etc.) and sustainability events (seminars, fairs, guests’ speakers).
• Disseminate innovation regarding ethical/sustainable issues such as new research and strategies (for example on social leadership) and the positive impact on companies and societies performance.

Martin, J.R. (1987) Transforming Moral Education, Journal of Moral Education,   16:3,   204-213,   DOI:  10.1080/0305724870160305