Approaches for Teaching Moral;

We as humans always try to differentiate between right and wrong. And also we make it a point to teach and transfer the same knowledge to our children. Many schools too make it a point to take it as a extra curricular subject by calling it as 'Moral science'. Let us understand what is moral. Moral relates to principles of right and wrong in behaviour, especially for teaching right behaviour (Wiktionary).

Children spend major part of their day in school environment. And in school, children spend more time in the company of teachers. Teachers often model values unconsciously. They show who and what they think highly of or, conversely, do not think highly of by their emotional reactions. They share personal heroes, preferences among activities, approval and disapproval of the actions of people and other qualities with emotional signals that communicate in infectious ways to children. We also should not ignore the fact that the teachers themselves become models (http://www.education.com/reference/article/develop-values/). This gives a hint that moral develops not just by learning, but also by observing things around us, consciously and unconsciously.

There could be two major approaches for teaching moral to children. One is teaching moral through traditional curriculum of moral science subject and the second approach is by creating experiences for children in daily life transactions where they can inculcate moral behaviours.

In first approach we teach children stories of great heroes and their honesty and humility. And we miss out in letting them analyze the story situation and connect to their real life situation. Thus to overcome this shortcoming we need to introduce children to moral reasoning. Moral reasoning might not be valid in some cases, we need to just follow social order. Example; Stopping your bike at red signal. This is the situation where you cannot activate your reasoning, but to follow social order. Social order is the manner in which a society is organized and the rules and standards required to maintain that organization (thefreedictionary.com).

Moral reasoning is a thinking process with the objective of determining whether an idea is right or wrong (wiki books). For this we need someone who understands the concept of moral development and guides the children. Currently in schools we see that moral science is taught just like a story. The moral reasoning could also involve deeper moral dilemma. A moral dilemma is a conflict in which you have to choose between two or more actions and have moral reasons for choosing each action (study.com). Example of moral dilemma: You are an eyewitness to a crime: A man has robbed a bank, but instead of keeping the money for himself, he donates it to a poor orphanage that can now afford to feed, clothe, and care for its children. You know who committed the crime. If you go to the authorities with the information, there's a good chance the money will be returned to the bank, leaving a lot of kids in need. What do you do? (Buzzfeed.com).

The thinking in this kind of scenario, helps the child to learn reasoning and organise and express the thought.

Other than school, the home environment also plays a major role in moral development. Every culture has its set of social rules, customs, traditions, beliefs, or practices which specify proper, acceptable forms of conduct. Yet even though morals can vary from person to person and culture to culture, many are universal, as they result from basic human emotions (psychology today).

Maaz Mohammed A.Q. The writer is a learning strategist at Ccels La Education Bangalore.