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Maybe moral education should be about developing students' individual passions? And supporting them in developing "grit"?

This makes me think about how, on the higher education level, the top students tend to be those who pursue their passions outside the bounds of traditional categories- I think this is even true of professionals who tend to be recognized in their fields. As the article says, no history teacher would want to be blatantly mainstream. Part of the richness of university life is the affinity spaces of clubs and classes for unique interests, and this is present to a degree in earlier education through clubs, too. I think a certain exposure to a wide array of topics is important for earlier education, but I think the perspective for this can be shifted from a necessary baseline in every subject to drawing interdisciplinary advantages towards the developing passion of the student. In the early years, a basic education in all subjects, with opportunities to explore connections or more deeply delve into a growing passion could help students to discover why they should persist in learning, and to take more ownership of the process and developing knowledge. I experienced this kind of opportunity through independent research opportunities in elementary school in a gifted program- this is the kind of program that can benefit all students, not just those identified as gifted.

Page 39 "If textbooks allowed for controversy, they could show students which claims rest on strong evidence, which on softer ground. As they challenged students to make their own decisions as to what probably happened, they would also be introducing students to the various methods and forms of evidence- oral history, written records, cultural similarities, linguistic changes, human genetics, pottery, archaeological dating, plant migrations- that researches use to derive knowledge about the distant past. Unfortunately, textbooks seem locked in rhetoric of certainty." The article talks about the debate currently happening between the Texas State Board of Education regarding the curriculum covered in textbooks. In the article, he points out what is being debated at the three-day conference, in particular that textbooks should reflect the Christian roots of our nation. He points out that on the states' curriculum advisory panel are two very religious advocates, Reverend Peter Marshall and David Barton. This brings light to how the curriculum is chosen and by whom it is chosen by. The author points out that by having these two men on the board, the decision of the board ultimately reflects their views of how and what society needs to be taught. On the contrary, he states, these men should instead be making decisions to "respect the ideas and needs of the larger public". This article relates to the quote because textbooks are locked into a "rhetoric of certainty" decided by certain individuals. By deciding what is to be put in textbooks, they are regarding as facts, and instead they are just opinions and beliefs of individuals and by offering no other information to challenge these beliefs, it allows for no controversy and are students' full educational development is limited.

Although I generally agree with the point made by the author of this article, I find the tart and sarcastic way it is written to be slightly offensive. I feel that the tone of this article sounds somewhat belittling, particularly when it states "Forget crossing over the line; these folks don't even acknowledge that the line exists." I believe the author's point was made in an unnecessary and disrespectful manner. As to the content, I do agree with the article. Although I am a Christian and firm believer in Christ (and would therefore be among the majority in America and would want schools to reflect my Christian faith), I stand by our Constitution and laws and support the separation of church and state. In my opinion, the article is right when it states "we know that there is a difference between teaching about the history of religion in America and preaching the Gospel to a captive audience of children in our nation's classrooms." I see no problem with teaching history or even the history of theology, but forcing theology and beliefs into classroom is a form of oppression in my eyes. Students HAVE to go to school. If schools preach doctrine (regardless of which religion it is), then students HAVE to listen to the preaching and are therefore in an oppressive environment.

"Religion has animated many causes in our nation's history, and our children are entitled to hear the entire story in all its complexity." I'm reading this book and this quote definitely describes what the author is trying to point out. He named several examples of famous people in history like Hellen Keller, Christopher Colombus and many other events in the past that are being sugar-coated by our textbooks nowadays. He talked about how writers neglect to show the negative stories of these people which are necessary for the children to be learned.

I agree that it is an extremely important factor in curriculum. The article mentions that major factors for predicting adult success are intelligence, family's socioeconomic status and self-control. Given the difficulty in changing the former two, and the demonstrated potential to alter self-control, it seems necessary that this be a major component of elementary school curriculum and continue to be taught in middle and high school. Self control seems particularly important in high school when individuals are faced with more freedoms and especially more dangerous freedoms, such as choosing experimentation with drugs and alcohol over staying in to study. One potential issue I do see in teaching self-control effectively (as mentioned in the three curriculum article) is the problem of creating reward junkie. It seems like many of the benefits to be reaped from self-control are not as immediate as children may like to see, and so reward systems may be harder to implement given the lack of immediate reinforcement. But if an method could be found, it seems like reward systems could be beneficial. Despite the risk of becoming reward junkies, reward systems can be very effective with teaching behavioral type actions.

While teaching self-control is important to learn at a young age i believe this is the parents job. If parents do not reinforce this behavior at home the teachers' efforts would be useless. Teachers are teaching theory in the classroom and parents are living practice outside the home.

I agree completely with the above statement that such teaching is the parents' job. In my opinion, parents across the board are letting not only their own kids down, but their kids' classmates as well by not doing their parenting jobs effectively at home.

Moral development in schools.

A New Yorker article following up on the marshmallow study

The video of the kids in this marshmallow study is priceless.

This is crazy research. I don't even have much else to say. I do agree though. I think self-discipline is important. But I almost think balance is more important. I think it's OK to indulge occasionally. We need to learn discretion and discernment to know when to indulge and when to be disciplined.

Do you agree with the author of this blog, or with Horace Mann? Are women inherently better nurturers?

"the removal, suppression, or restricted circulation of literary, artistic, or educational materials--of images, ideas, and information--on the grounds that these are morally or otherwise objectionable in light of standards applied by the censor"

This is one of Jessica Ross' sources, and I think it's really an interesting connection to the idea of school as a game and the possibility of creating reward junkies vs. the benefits of instant feedback. Here's the quote she liked from it: "Clearly,verbally identifying misbehaving students by name, publicly stating specific transgressions, and the provision of team debits on a blackboard may have acted as a discriminative stimulus for appropriate conduct (Salend, Reynolds, & Coyle, 1989) and provided a source of immediate feedback."

Moral development in schools

Moral development in schools.