VALUES & MORAL EDUCATION: AIMS, CONTENT, & PEDAGOGY (Part 4)

It's been over a year since I promised to post this final part of my thoughts on values and moral education.

Aims and content 
My idea of the aim of Values and Moral Education is nothing earth-shaking. It should be aimed at getting the students to acquire the knowledge and intellectual skills that will enable them to address moral or evaluative issues effectively. But what exactly should be taught in Values and Moral Education? Well, one is, how to think and communicate in clear and precise terms. Another is, how to detect good and bad reasoning. Another is, how to argue correctly. Another is, how to evaluate one’s own or another person’s reasoning correctly. We could add many more in the list for as long as it is in keeping with the goal of developing highly rational problem solvers in the area of values and morality.

Clear and precise thoughts and language

Since Values and Moral Education should aim to sharpen higher order thinking skills, it is important that students learn first how to think and express themselves effectively. This is not the be all and end all of Values and Moral Education, but this will make a good starting point. Having the ability to think clearly is a necessary condition to solve difficult moral or evaluative problems effectively. Lucid thinking enables us to distinguish between relevant and irrelevant matters. And should we commit some errors in reasoning out our positions, the detection of which, either by us or by our critics, becomes faster and easier owing to the clarity with which we expressed ourselves. Having such ability thus will enable the problem solver to save more time, energy, and other resources, which could be used to consider other options.

Ability to detect fallacies

It is always a good thing for valuers to be familiar with fallacies as having knowledge of such errors is in itself a reminder that there are certain forms of reasoning that we should not commit and refuse to accept. For example, appeals to popularity, emotion, and false authorities, which many politicians and commercial advertisements find highly effective, are some of the many ways of conning a gullible public. If only we could show that we deserve something better, we could expect to hear political speeches and witness advertisements that intelligent minds rightfully deserve.

But why do rotten political speeches and commercial advertisements continue to proliferate when they don't reason at all? Think about these. Aga Mulach and Caridad Sanchez endorsing some medicines. What do they know about medicines? Manny Pacquiao endorsing a political administration. How many people allow themselves to be persuaded by a boxer who do not have the required competence to tell whether a political figure is shortchanging her own people? And how many people thought that Joseph Estrada and Fernando Poe Jr. will make good presidents of this country? Let us not be lost in examples because I think you already know what I mean.

Ability to argue soundly

What could happen to a country whose population is incapable of making sound arguments, especially in highly important issues, is not difficult to picture. In matters involving national interests, we decide who should represent us in law making, policy making, and in maintaining peace and order. It's ideal, of course, to think that a very poor country like the Philippines, whose government is generally run by corrupt politicians, should assume the attitude of not having the luxury of time for a gradual change. On this, much of the job rest on the teachers themselves. One of the things that we could do is to teach our young people to value good thinking, and not some noble-sounding moral doctrinal vagueness. Good thinking here means sound reasoning.

We could say that a valuer is capable of advancing a sound argument if he/she offers a set of strong reason to support his/her moral or evaluative belief. For example, it is highly problematic for a valuer to believe that death penalty is wrong by appeal to emotion and pity as these are fallacious ways of thinking. Good thinking here requires the production of strong evidence to support a certain moral or evaluative proposition.

Ability to evaluate and revise one’s own reasoning

The ability to assess and revise one’s own thinking is equally an important element of good thinking or sound reasoning. If this develops into a habit, we could categorize the valuer as a disciplined arguer in that he/she would not advance an evaluative or moral belief without first subjecting his/her own arguments to rigorous questioning.

Pedagogy

I should like to address this question now: How should Values and Moral Education, in its reasoning sense, be taught? My answer to this question is brief. The teacher should employ techniques that will encourage the students to reason out their individual moral or evaluative convictions or beliefs. Teaching here may come in the form of Socratic Dialogue, facilitating group discussion or debate, and assisting individual students in solving moral or evaluative issues. There are of course other forms of teaching and they may be considered valid so long as they emphasize reasoning and they refrain from imposing anyone’s moral values on the students.

So, should we not transmit any one form of value in Values and Moral Education?

The answer is NO. There is one form of value that we could not avoid transmitting in Values and Moral Education in its reasoning sense. And that is the intellectual form of values. Again, some of these intellectual values are the following: clear thinking, sound reasoning, and consistency of thoughts. These are all important requirements for living a good and genuinely HUMAN life. I am placing emphasis on the expression “human” as animals could be happy even if they don’t have to deal with problems using the kind of thinking that we do on issues like abortion, death penalty, cloning, marriage, divorce, and so on.

Summary

Allow me now to restate the problems that I have just addressed:

1. What are the problems of values transmission or indoctrination form of Values and Moral Education?

2. What should be the aims of Values and Moral Education?

3. What should be the content of Values and Moral Education?

4. How should Values and Moral Education be taught?

I am aware that my suggestions in administering Values and Moral Education are by no means complete. But I am confident that they will make a good start towards a good case of Values and Moral Education. Let us teach the young Filipinos that it is commonly wrong for anyone to accept anyone’s claim upon insufficient reason.