TIME FOR MORAL SCIENCE?

TIME FOR MORAL SCIENCE?

Moral Science, two mutually exclusive terms, clubbed together, to take an hour, every week of a child’s academic time. An earlier generation, went to sleep for an hour in their classrooms. The boring stories of honesty, kindness, love and fair behavior were poured into ears that chose  not to  listen.

What then was the purpose of this futile exercise? It was felt that children as, they grew up, should have suitable moral foundation. It was felt that the best way to instill in the children these qualities, was to tell them stories that depict deeds displaying them. An honest man who stood by truth even in the face of grave danger,  deeds of great kindness and sacrifice expecting nothing in return and done for people not even known. These stories were expected to inspire the children and entice them to follow these principles.

However there was just one problem with this approach. These extraneous acts of extreme goodness had no semblance with anything that the kids have ever seen or experienced. The situation had nothing to do with anything that these children have been in their lives or anyone they know.

In fact there was a serious disconnect between what was being taught and what the kids were ever likely to encounter in their lives. The failure of the moral science has hence prompted schools to discard moral education at school. New generation children have been deprived an hour of sleeping in their classrooms.

Moral values, today, have taken a back seat. Young children are getting involved in nefarious activities, in a manner that was unheard of before. Simple qualities like honesty and kindness are fast disappearing and children are increasingly finding ways of expression bordering on hostility and fraud. Teachers have conveniently washed their hands off the child’s character formation and heaping blame on hapless parents, who incidentally have very little time to get involved in the child’s behavioral growth.

So how does a school become a haven of growth rather than an educational supermarket?  How does the teacher be the guide than a seller of lessons? How does the educational system ensure that they roll out good citizens with well-rounded personalities? One thing is for sure. Restarting moral science class is definitely not a solution.

It is time for the brains to get together and bring education more a human activity than just a feeding of information into young minds. The interaction between students and teachers, especially in the primary and pre- primary stages should be more in a manner that reflects home than a factory. It is time for teachers to watch the students themselves rather than just evaluate the answer sheets.

This could well be worth a try….methodology to be worked out.