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The Ancient Greeks and Their Ideas on Human Values by Art Kane, M.A. ExtensionActivities A Letter for Analysis (for Honor Students) (This letter appeared in The Wall Street Journal dated November 15, 1999): Subject: MORAL INSTRUCTION IS NOT INDOCTRINATION ...The infusion of morality into public-school classrooms is not a new practice, and, more significantly, it has not always been advocated by those motivated by religious conviction. Famed University of Chicago educator Mortimer Adler, educator, spent the 1930s and 1940s railing against the prevalent teaching style of the time, which he believed lacked moral certainty. He feared that relativism-embracing teachers of the day were creating a generation of students with wish-washy moral fiber. He believed absolute moral standards were needed to be returned to the classroom, and that students needed to be taught these absolute standards. His message is instructive today. I teach an ethics class in a secular boarding school in upstate New York and am consistently shocked at my students' inability to condemn obviously horrific behavior. Adler turns in his grave, I am sure, when my students defend slavery, female genital mutilation and other atrocities that are occurring in the world today with the argument: "Well, it's just the way their culture works." We do not need religion in our classrooms to teach our children to recognize right from wrong. But we cannot be afraid to tell them that some things are never acceptable. If we continue to fear that moral instruction in any form in classrooms is simply a guise for religious indoctrination, we will surely continue to produce morally hollow graduates. As Adler wrote, "When men no longer have confidence that right decisions . . . matters can be rationally arrived at . . . the institutions of democracy are the walls of an empty house which will collapse under the pressure from without because of the vacuum within." New Lebanon, NY Discuss with students whether or not moral issues need to be included as a fundamental part of school curriculums.

The Ancient Greeks and Their Ideas on Human Values

by Art Kane, M.A.

ExtensionActivities

A Letter for Analysis (for Honor Students)

(This letter appeared in The Wall Street Journal dated November 15, 1999):

Subject: MORAL INSTRUCTION IS NOT INDOCTRINATION

...The infusion of morality into public-school classrooms is not a new practice, and, more significantly, it has not always been advocated by those motivated by religious conviction.

Famed University of Chicago educator Mortimer Adler, educator, spent the 1930s and 1940s railing against the prevalent teaching style of the time, which he believed lacked moral certainty. He feared that relativism-embracing teachers of the day were creating a generation of students with wish-washy moral fiber. He believed absolute moral standards were needed to be returned to the classroom, and that students needed to be taught these absolute standards.

His message is instructive today. I teach an ethics class in a secular boarding school in upstate New York and am consistently shocked at my students' inability to condemn obviously horrific behavior. Adler turns in his grave, I am sure, when my students defend slavery, female genital mutilation and other atrocities that are occurring in the world today with the argument: "Well, it's just the way their culture works." We do not need religion in our classrooms to teach our children to recognize right from wrong. But we cannot be afraid to tell them that some things are never acceptable.

If we continue to fear that moral instruction in any form in classrooms is simply a guise for religious indoctrination, we will surely continue to produce morally hollow graduates. As Adler wrote, "When men no longer have confidence that right decisions . . . matters can be rationally arrived at . . . the institutions of democracy are the walls of an empty house which will collapse under the pressure from without because of the vacuum within."

New Lebanon, NY

Discuss with students whether or not moral issues need to be included as a fundamental part of school curriculums.