Chapter 22: Teaching Moral Development

Anyone who takes up the profession of teaching, at any level, is taking up the cause of moral-character education. Indeed, there is universal consensus that education is value-laden and that moral education is inescapable in classrooms and schools. Moral values are implicated in the topics chosen or excluded for instruction; in the respect accorded for truth and the demand for excellence, good effort, and mastery. It is evident in the way groups are formed, relationships encouraged or discipline enforced. Values are intrinsic to what it means to develop, set goals, and aspire to achieve them. Indeed, Stengle and Tom (2006) insist that the language of morality is heard in schools every time issues of right relation and what is worth doing emerge in instructional lessons or within the interactions of students, teachers, and colleagues.