Three stages of a school's moral development

Religious Education, Winter 2001 by Schwartz, Earl

Abstract

Through alternating waves of popular enthusiasm and disillusionment with formal development programs, the Talmud Torah of St. Paul Day School has persisted in its commitment to moral education. A review of the Day School's own stages of development and the development of its ethics curriculum over the past fifteen years may prove useful to other schools considering a similar commitment.

STAGE ONE

The Talmud Torah's approach to moral education is rooted in a long history, stretching back at least two hundred years, of attempts by educators to form self-governing and self-judging youth communities. A careful reading of the record shows that far from inevitably culminating in the diabolical tyranny portrayed in William Golding's Lord of the Flies, many of these efforts yielded encouraging results. In the twentieth century, Janusz Korczak1 in Poland and Lawrence Kohlberg2 in the United States were among the more prominent proponents of the moral empowerment of youth through the development of their moral judgment. In contrast to programs based on an ideology of juvenile libertarianism, on the one hand,3 or the inculcation of morals as culture-bound mores,4 on the other, both Korzcak and Kohlberg experimented on the middle ground of guided, reflective learning through participation in self-governing and self-judging communities.

Kohlberg's vision of facilitating the development of principled moral judgment through guided experience with moral responsibility led to a wide variety of education projects in the 1970s and 80s,5 including the launching of the Talmud Torah of St. Paul Day School's moral development curriculum. Korczak and Kohlberg's influence is evident in the three premises that have guided the development of the Day School's curriculum:

1. the centrality of moral problem solving to the school's overall curriculum

2. the building of a whole school community ethos

3. the cultivating of participatory processes for learning about moral problem solving

The curriculum originated in moral dilemma discussion materials developed between 1979 and 1983 at the Talmud Torah of St. Paul Afternoon School. These materials were eventually published in Moral Development: A Practical Guide for Jewish Teachers.6 When the Talmud Torah Day School was established in 1982, the afternoon school's materials were adapted to form the core of the day school's ethics curriculum as well. The techniques and moral dilemmas presented in Moral Development were also woven into the Day School's Tanach and Rabbinics curricula. Both curricula were punctuated by dilemma discussion units that ran parallel to themes raised in biblical and rabbinical texts. The fifth grade curriculum, for example, included the study of Numbers 12, in which Miriam and Aaron are critical of Moses' pre-eminence as a prophet. The text indicates that Moses was willing to forego his sister suffering any dire consequences for her attack on his authority, but this is countered by God's insistence that she be punished for her impudence. Study of this text came to be accompanied by a unit from Moral Development that deals with the tension between justice and mercy. Similarly, the sixth grade's study of I Samuel 14, the story of Saul's near annihilation of the Amalekites, was joined to a unit on the halachah7 of violence and self-defense.8 This focus on moral problem solving has continued to be a distinctive feature of the Day School's culture, and has served as the principle bridge to its integrated curriculum. All aspects of school life-academic and social-are touched by this central concern.

The curriculum, in turn, was set in the broader framework of a whole school community ethos. This ethos was grounded in the principle that all people involved in the life of the school, regardless of age or station, are co-workers in a common effort. The maintaining of a community ethos has been made more difficult by the counter-tendency among many parents and children to view school as a service, purchased for the purpose of personal and professional advancement. This perspective is reflective of the larger movement in American society toward the transformation of central elements of public life into commodities.9 The Day School has sought to counteract this tendency through the fostering of cooperative efforts between various segments of the school community.

One way in which the school has attempted to articulate a whole school community ethos has been by cultivating a cooperative educational relationship with students' families. Parents, siblings, and other extended family members are frequent visitors to the school. During the 1997-98 school year, three separate adult study groups met at the school. Participants included parents and grandparents of students, as well as persons without a direct connection to the student body. Joint parent-student study evenings on various aspects of Jewish law and lore are held throughout the school year.

Another channel employed to nurture a school community ethos is cross-grade learning. Cross-grade groupings are frequently used in conjunction with learning fairs, holiday celebrations, and tutoring and mentoring. Older students assist younger students with learning tasks ranging from reading skills to lunchroom table manners and donning snow pants.