Moral Lessons

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 62, 4 June 1927, Page 18

Moral Lessons

American Study SYSTEM IN SCHOOLS SCHEMES DISCUSSED In New York City fifteen minutes of every school day will be given up to systematic training in morals, if present plans of the Character Committee of the Board of Education mature. In Salt Lake City, as in Boston, there are already in use complete courses in character development, arranged through Grades one to eight. In lowa, in Los Angeles, in the National Education Association pedagogues are puzzling over lessons in duty as well as decimals, reliability as well as reading. But here, as in no other phase of their work, they have plenty of offers of outside help. Already five different character education schemes, three of them proposed and engineered by national welfare organisations, are in use in some fifty New York public schools. In morals, too, as rarely in reading and writing, the subject is being dramatically presented to the children, with "badges, diplomas and even knightly panoply. There are almost as many suggested ways of dramatising as there are virtues clamouring for places in the curriculum. Indeed, one of the most vexed problems is choosing the virtues to teach. There are not only the miscellaneous or, so to unattached virtues, any one of which may have appeal for a particular teacher, but there are also various groups of virtues—personal, social, civic and those strictly belonging to the classroom. As guides basic children’s codes have been drawn up in different parts of the country. Two of these inventories were evolved at Teachers’ College, where the code for younger children was passed on by 74 experts. A third from the University of lowa won a 20,000 dollar prize in an interstate competition. Code Of The “Good American’' On the fourth and most popular (drawn up by William J. Hutchins, President of Berea College), the Boston course of study and that of other cities is based. It, too, was originally a prize-winner to the amount of 5,000 dollars and is a kind of decalogue of civic virtue. It is headed ‘ The Good American” and reads: 1. Tries to gain and to keep perfect health. 2. Controls himself. 3. Is self-reliant. 4. Is reliable. 5. Plays fair. 6. Does his duty. 7. Tries to do the right thing in the right way. S. Works in friendly co-operation witli his fellow-workers. 9. Is kind. 10. Is loyal. On conformity to this code, rather than on school deportment, it is recommended that children be graded on their report cards. Fifteen minutes of each day is supposed to be spent in classroom discussion of some phase of the code or its explanatory paragraphs. A classroom club, Uncle Sam’s Boys and Girls, is to be formed with tne morality code as its constitution. For disloyalty' to it the club badge may be taken away. This is the programme of the Character Education Institution in Washington, made up largely of school heads.

Different both in method and the virtues taught is the plan called the Knighthood of Youth, now in use in some twenty-nine New York City' schools, and sporadically in sixteen States other than New York. It has a kind of decalogue, but it is a decalogue of action, of personal habits rather than of moral rules. Moreover it is not so much a school as a home exercise, in which the parents cooperate with the child, and the school furnishes the initiative, the records and the spectacular rewards.

The theory' is that character, like piano virtuosity, cannot be attained by discussion, but only by regular dailypractice. You must try over your habits every day, just as you do your five-finger exercises. So the National Child Welfare Association has selected ten homely personal virtues for the young knight’s daily practice, in a kind of graded, four-year course in habitformation. Three of these virtues—kindness, self-reliance, self-control—-are like the tenets of the Children's Code. The others are somewhat different: Obedience, carefulness, promptness, neatness, courtesy, honesty and cheerfulness.

But they are not put before the child in an abstract way'. Beginning in the third or fourth grade the teacher asks the children of her class if they would like to enrol in the Knighthood of Youth. A page’s button is given to each pupil and he is told that if lie wishes to progress to the next rank, that of esquire, he must go forth like the knights of old and slay bad habits. Then he receives his home exercise chart, to be marked with ten exercises a day for sixteen weeks, and two extra weekly exercises for good measure. That is, he must mark his chart “yes” or “no” 1,152 times, covering the concrete exercises in obedience, neatness, etc., listed. For instance: Did I come as promptly as possible whenever called by my mother, father or teacher? Did I put my clothes, books, toys and tools away when I was through with them? Did I cry over little hurts and troubles? If the chart is kept daily*, approved by the mother or father and the teacher, and shows a sufficient number of “yes” answers, the child is advanced in a solemn school ceremony to the rank of esquire. Then if he wishes to be a knight, he starts in on another sixteen-week trial, with practice on the same ten virtues in another guise. With still other charts and sets of questions the child next works toward the ranks of Knight Banneret and Knight Constant. If by the time he reaches the seventh grade he has filled out five of these charts and attained the highest rank, he will ideally' have practised obedience, neatness, self-con-trol, and the rest, each 560 times. Counting the weekly tasks, he will have done a possible total of 5,760 character-forming exercises—enough so the sponsors think, to fix those habits for life. Talks On Ethics Unlike the Knighthood scheme, which work; i through practice, theother national character organisation using the New York schools works almost entirely through precept. The Pathfinders of America is an organisation of itinerant morr.l teachers who go from school to school giving popular half-hour talks on ethics. The course they give is called “Human Engineering, or Reading the Price Tags of Life,” and they stress some of the same virtues—practised in the Knighthood movement—cheerfulness, helpfulness, duty, heroism and truth. In New York and Brooklyn they reach some 5,000 pupils in six different public schools. Originally the Pathfinders were iz corporated in Michigan as a characterbuilding organisation among prisoners. Five years ago they were asked to give one of their talks in a Detroit school. Now they are systematically’ working in 61 Detroit schools, in Henry Ford’s Trade School, and in a number of other Michigan public school systems, as well as in New York and Cleveland.

The other two character education schemes used in New York schools are indigenous. They are devices of a New York superintendent and a principal, both members of the committee working out the new public school syllabus in morals. Primarily' both devices make school spirit favour good conduct in the classroom. One emphasises the individual, the other the group. The former is the Four-1 League, devised by District Superintendent Frank J. Arnold. The four

“I’s,” taken from Roger W. Babson’s “Six I’s of Success,” are industry, integrity, intelligence and initiative. They' are the basis of design for four emblems made in the school colours typifying the four steps upward in the league. In this plan there are no objective standards, or feats which the child must perform. His entrance into the league and his advancement depend solely on the good opinion of the majority of his teachers and the poor opinion of none. Rewards By Classes The other New York scheme, devised by Albert Loewinthan, principal of the Yorkville Junior High School, is also a reward sy r stem based on a teacher vote. It is, however, a class and not and individual reward. The self-con-trol diploma hangs in the rooms of those classes, “which have not been reported on the stairs, in the halls, in the playground and which have been consistently punctual and quiet and industrious when the teacher is out of the room.” Self-control, in the definition of the school, means doing the right thing when you feel like doing the wrong thing. Under this system, discipline tends to be administered more by the class than by the teacher, says Mr. Loewinthan. The black sheep who keeps an entire class from obtaining the diploma faces social ostracism. These, then, are New York’s present attempts at putting juvenile public opinion on the side of authority. As to their effectiveness for the purpose opinions differ. Dr. Albert Shiels, Professor of Education at Teachers’ College, and adviser of the United Parents’ Associations of the public schools, was asked what he thought of the proposed plan of setting aside fifteen minutes a day for moral instruction. “If you must place a time,” he said, “moral instruction should continue live hours, or however long school is in session. To be a good citizen you must know something, but knowing the encyclopaedia does not make you a good citizen. It is fatal to conceive of moral education as a matter of accumulating knowledge. “Most of the evils of the schoolroom are based on fear—fear of discipline, fear of failure. Replace this spirit and the spirit of rivalry with that of friendly co-operation between teacher and pupils, and the evils disappear. Take the copying during tests that is so prevalent. When I was a school principal, instead of forbidding it I insisted upon it. It was the duty' of each child to help his neighbour. But he must not only show him the right answer, he must teach him the process as well.” A similar opinion was expressed recently in California by' 187 high school principals who ranked nine different influences in the order of their effectiveness in developing pupils’ moral traits. Direct moral instruction was at the bottom of their list, and 63 points below its nearest neighbour. Student clubs and self-government were fourth and fifth in rank, with personal influence of teachers, daily lessons and athletics at the top. As for the sy'stem in which pupils advance in rank on their reports of their own good deeds, one New York principal believes that it puts a premium on the very' lying it tries to discourage. “An opportunity to tell or act an untruth is created by allowing children to check their charts,” say*s Miss Fredericka Steiner of Public School 161. “No opportunity should even be given for such deception, particularly as there can be no check-up on the children’s self-rating.” In one such system where pupils’ records of their conduct were checked only by themselves, the Character Education Inquiry at Teachers’ College found by scientific test that members of the organisation cheated more in classroom work than did non-mem-bers. Moreover, those who advanced in rank fastest cheated more than those who progressed normally'. “The conclusion seems warranted,” says the inquiry', “that where dishonesty is rewarded, dishonesty is practised.” Two other criticisms made by Miss Steiner are that “any method which sets up artificial situations will have only a limited value,” and that “children should not work for rewards and titles but do right because it is right.” Other teachers also are of the opinion that moral habits are best acquired byimitation or “absorption,” without definite programme or conscious effort.