Moral Pedagogy Research Articles

Kierkegaard’s Three Spheres and Cinematic Fairy Tale Pedagogy inFrozen,Moana, andTangled

Although Disney films are sometimes denigrated as popular or “low” art forms, this article argues that they often engage deeply with, and thereby communicate, significant moral truths. The capitalistic enterprise of contemporary modern cinema demands that cinematic moral pedagogy be sublimated into non-partisan forms, often by substituting secular proxies for otherwise divine or spiritual components. By adapting Søren Kierkegaard’s tripartite existential anthropology of the self, I analyze the subjective experiences of the protagonists in three recent animated fairy tales—Disney’s Frozen, Moana, and Tangled—to demonstrate how these princess movies bridge the imaginative gap between the mundane and the divine.

Dilemmas and problems of being a moral educator

Kinesiology is the science of human movement. Within the United States, kinesiology encompasses different sub-disciplines of human movement, e.g., exercise physiology, biomechanics, sport psychology, and philosophy, as well as, the professions of teaching, leading, and training. This paper addresses one issue, the lack of moral education in the preparation of kinesiology pre-professionals. Moral education is imperative for kinesiology students to address issues of right and wrong as well as engage in higher order reasoning however, many problems exist in applying moral education to kinesiology. First, even though 37 states have some sort of requirement that moral education is a part of the general public education curriculum, apparently, no direct teaching of moral values exists in public elementary, middle, and high schools. Students arrive at the university with no background. Second, direct teaching of moral values is nonexistent because: teachers and college instructors are not content experts in moral education, consumer-based education drives and affects students’ value of education, and the fallacious argument that ethics should only be taught to the young. Third, moral pedagogy is seldom applied. All of which directly affects kinesiology students in making decisions of right and wrong in a service profession. Therefore, the purpose of this narrative philosophical paper is twofold: to discuss the problems and dilemmas incorporating moral education in kinesiology curriculum and discuss three specific solutions, the: a) creation of moral development courses, b) use of writing intensive courses, and c) development of courses in pedagogy. A narrative philosophical approach discusses theory and supports with real life examples.

Using Forum Theatre to Develop Various Levels of Thinking Skills among Moral Education Students in Secondary School

Purpose –The power of forum theatre in education and various field is well known by educators. However, the use of forum theatre in Malaysia, particularly in the field of moral education, is still lacking and limited. At the same time, the development of thinking skills is one of the aims of the moral education curriculum in Malaysia. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the use of forum theatre as a pedagogical tool in developing various levels of thinking skills among moral education students.
 Method –This study adopted a qualitative research design and was underpinned by Bloom’s revised taxonomy as the theoretical and analytical framework. A total of 14 moral education students participated in this study. Data were collected qualitatively using classroom observation, interviews, and journal writing. Thematic analysis was utilized to analyse and present the findings.
 Findings –The findings of this study reveal that various theatrical activities that underpinned the four elements of forum theatre-(i) writing a script, (ii) delivering a dialogue in an anti-model play, (iii) discussion and decision-making in a forum session, and (iv) improvisation in an intervention play-show the development of students’thinking skill level such as analysing, evaluating, and creating skills. Therefore, this study suggests that forum theatre can be used in moral education pedagogy to enhance higher order thinking skills (HOTS).
 Significance –Meaningful instructional pedagogy must inspire thinking skills to foster creativity and innovation among students. This is considered an important skill in 21st century learning. Therefore, these findings are beneficial for teachers, lecturers, parents, and instructional designers to plan and implement suitable teaching methods such as forum theatre to empower and improve students’ thinking skill levels.

TRADITIONAL TEACHING METHOD - CONCEPT OF MORAL EDUCATION AND PEDAGOGY IN AATHICUUDI

This Paper tries to describe about the ancient teaching of Tamilnadu. How the education system was established by the early Tamils? And how one person become a teacher in the earliest and what are the names given to them and what are the tools used for the teaching. The earliest education based on moral development. Moral values are much needed “to inspire, propel, and equip the learners with adequate skills, awareness, and values was taught. However, this paper tries to answer for the origin of the Tamil alphabet and how the bardic culture and Thymesian culture evolves in ancient education. and also this paper deals how the scribal culture helps us for the teaching.

Defensive over Climate Change? Climate Shame as a Method of Moral Cultivation

The climate crisis is an enormous challenge for contemporary societies. Yet, public discussions on it often lead to anger, mocking, denial and other defensive behaviours, one prominent example of which is the reception met by the climate advocate Greta Thunberg. The paper approaches this curious phenomenon via shame. It argues that the very idea of anthropogenic climate change invites feelings of human failure and thereby may also entice shame. The notion of “climate shame” is introduced and distinguished from “climate guilt”. Whereas climate guilt prioritises the flourishing of the environment and is focused on actions and morality, climate shame is concerned with human identity and selfhood. The paper then explores whether shame is a morally destructive or constructive emotion. Making use of both psychological and philosophical literature on shame, it argues that although shame faces many challenges that question its usefulness in moral pedagogy, these challenges can be met with “moral maturity”—moreover, following a utilitarian approach, the overall benefits of climate shame can justify its costs to individuals. My argument is that climate shame holds the potential of being a highly effective moral psychological method of persuasion, capable of inviting wholesale critical reflection on current, environmentally damaging practices and cultivation of more virtuous ways of co-existing with the rest of the natural world and other species.

Where is Finch's Landing? Rereading To Kill A Mockingbird As Moral Pedagogy

Where is Finch's Landing? Rereading To Kill A Mockingbird As Moral Pedagogy

Global citizenship education: A new ‘moral pedagogy’ for the 21st century?

In the past two decades global citizenship education (GCE) has become established in national and international education policy. This article focuses on the emergence of GCE in the educational discourse of the Province of Trento in northern Italy and outlines how policymakers and teachers construct GCE as a pedagogical framework for schooling in the 21st century. Combining the perspectives that emerge from the scholarly literature with the findings of a qualitative study based on Constructivist and Informed Grounded Theory, the article proposes a typology of GCE ideal-types. The typology illustrates two ‘mainstream ideal-types’ of GCE (neo-liberal human capitalism and cosmopolitan humanism) and two ‘critical ideal-types’ (social-justice activism and critical counter practice). In the province studied, the dominant perspective is cosmopolitan humanism. GCE is essentially conceptualised as a ‘new moral pedagogy’ that reflects adherence and commitment to a universal moral structure based on humanistic cosmopolitan values. The author believes that critical GCE perspectives in line with social-justice activism and critical counter practice should find expression in both policies, curricula and practices. However, this is recognised as a challenge which could be partially addressed through teacher education and an alliance between academia and practice.

Educating Self-Reflective Engineers

Some engineering educators recognize the necessity and challenges of teaching students moral sensitivity. As recently pointed out by some scholars, along with moral sensitivity, promoting “self-knowledge” is significantly lacking in engineering curricula. We suggest that the “ethics autobiography” employed in some health and psychological science programs can serve as a useful tool for helping engineering students develop moral sensitivity and self-reflective competencies. First, this paper briefly discusses some unique potential strengths of introducing ethics autobiography as a tool for moral pedagogy to engineering education. Second, this paper provides five specific examples on how to implement ethics autobiography in the classroom. Among the five examples, two are directly related to engineering education and the other three can easily be adapted to meet the needs of engineering education. Finally, this paper concludes with some discussion of the implications of ethics autobiography for engineering ethics education reform and the limitations and ethical considerations of using autobiography in moral pedagogy.

USING FORUM THEATRE TO DEVELOP VARIOUS LEVELS OF THINKING SKILLS AMONG MORAL EDUCATION STUDENTS IN SECONDARY SCHOOL

Purpose –The power of forum theatre in education and various other fields is well known by educators. However, the use of forum theatre in Malaysia, particularly in the field of moral education, is still limited. At the same time, the development of thinking skills is one of the aims of the Malaysian moral education curriculum. Therefore, this study examined the use of forum theatre as a pedagogical tool in developing various levels of thinking skills among moral education students. Method –The study adopted a qualitative research design and was underpinned by Bloom’s revised taxonomy as the theoretical and analytical framework. A total of 14 moral education students participated in this study. Data were collected qualitatively using classroom observations, interviews, and journal writing. Thematic analysis was utilized to analyse and present the findings. Findings –The findings revealed that various theatrical activities that underpinned the four elements of forum theatre: (i) writing a script, (ii) delivering a dialogue in an anti-model play, (iii) discussion and decision-making in a forum session, and (iv) improvisation in an intervention play, show the development of students’ thinking skills at the level of analysing, evaluating and creating. Therefore, this study suggests that forum theatre can be used in moral education pedagogy to enhance higher order thinking skills. Significance – Meaningful instructional pedagogy must inspire thinking skills to foster creativity and innovation among students. This is considered an important skill in 21st century learning. Hence, these findings are beneficial for teachers, lecturers, parents and instructional designers who wish to plan and implement suitable teaching methods such as forum theatre to empower and improve students’ thinking skill levels.

“LITTLE ARISTOTLE” - ETHICAL VIRTUES WORKSHOP

Little Aristotle - Ethical Virtues Workshop. Inspired by Nicomachean Ethics, the project aims to seed virtuous consistent attitudes in children, as part of their moral enculturation process, understood as a coherent set of knowledge, criteria, and capacities of moral judgment. Character’s dispositions like courage, generosity, friendship, correctness or gentleness were aimed to be cultivated by activating non-formal educational methods, anchored in real life and adapted to children’s stage of development. The activities and conclusions of this workshop are presented in this article, which the main purpose is to find a place for Aristotelian ethics in nowadays moral education for children, to highlight the need for an appropriate moral pedagogy, that takes into account children’s capacities of understanding and to inspire ethicists and moral trainers in their work.

La lección del finalismo moral en los cuentos maravillosos

The moral pedagogy in the fairy tales is simple but powerful. It is concentrated in the lesson –according to the message of Aristotle– about the finalism sense of action: it makes the child understand that the human answer is an action with sense. Everything in the fairy tale leads to this perspective. Moreover, it exemplifies MacIntyre’s opinion which says that current people tend to be proto-aristotelian and to understand their own life and the other’s in narrative terms.

Moral Enhancement, Instrumentalism, and Integrative Ethical Education

AbstractIn this chapter I will discuss some of the arguments presented inUnfit for the Future, where the authors stress the necessity of moral enhancement to prevent a global catastrophe. Persson and Savulescu promote a reductionistic view of moral intuitions suggesting that oxytocin, serotonin, and genetic treatments could save humanity from the perils of contemporary liberalism, weapons of mass destruction, and uncontrolled pollution. I will contend that although we need a moral enhancement it cannot be a brute manipulation of our biology but something where human plasticity is seen as paramount. Following the lesson of Dewey's instrumentalism, I advocate a non-reductionistic, pluralistic view where neuroscientific data may be used to develop a more effective moral pedagogy. In my opinion, this prospect is currently much more feasible (and less risky) than a hypothetical mass psycho-civilisation created using drugs and electrodes.

Evil, virtue, and education in Kant

For Kant, we cannot understand how to approach moral education without confronting the radical evil of humanity. But if we start out, as Kant thinks we do, from a morally corrupt state, how can we make moral progress? In response, I explore in this paper Kant’s gradualist and revolutionary accounts of moral progress. These differing accounts of progress raise two key questions in the literature: are these accounts compatible and which type of progress comes first? Against other views in the literature, I argue that gradual progress through a change of mores must come first and can gradually lead toward, as its ideal endpoint, a revolution in our disposition (or a change of heart) and the overthrowing of our radical evil. This has important implications for moral pedagogy.

On the ‘front lines’ of the classroom: moral education and Muslim students in French state schools

This paper examines the role of the French state school classroom as a scene of moral pedagogy from the point of view of the French state and Muslim community activists. I argue that in both sets of discourses, the state school classroom is consistently figured as the front lines of a battleground, in which teachers, students, and parents are all combatants, but the sides and stakes of the battle are drawn differently. In each account, though, the stakes of the battle centre on the moral education of the rising generation. The state discourses fit with the history of French pedagogical theory since the inception of the state schools, and mark a recent ‘return of the moral’ in French public discourse and policy making. In response to the increased securitisation of the state school classroom in the aftermath of the attacks of January and November 2015, French Muslim activists have addressed a variety of conflicts related to the schools as a single coordinated fight against Islamophobia, discrimination, and persistent inequalities. By both paralleling and inverting the state’s ‘battleground’ rhetoric in their critiques, these activists situate themselves at the heart of the national conversation about how to form the rising generation as ethical subjects.

Book Review: The Authority of the Gospel: Explorations in Moral and Political Theology in Honor of Oliver O'Donovan

The Authority of the Gospel: Explorations in Moral and Political Theology in Honor of Oliver O'Donovan. Edited by Robert Song and Brent Waters. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans Publishing, 2015. xxi + 294 pp. $45.00 (cloth).In his foreword to this festschrift Rowan Williams describes Oliver O'Donovan as of the most serious thinkers the Anglican family has nurtured in the last century or so (p. viii). Although Reinhold Niebuhr and Stanley Hauerwas may have had wider general influence, if one considers the field of Christian ethics, then in terms of erudition in scholarly languages, theological insight, historical engagement, and the sheer range of issues of concern to which O'Donovan brings his illuminating analysis, he is without peer.This festschrift is reflective of the broad range of O'Donovan s interests: political theology, of course (historical and contemporary), ethical theory (practical reason, natural law, virtues), detailed engagement with the application of moral principles in complex situations (for example, just war), and the life of the Christian in the world and in the church (preaching and liturgy).There are several essays on the intersection of church and world, of public and private morality, an area where the insights of Augustine are still bearing fruit. Eric Gregory has a fine essay on the civic virtues. Brian Brock has a helpful essay on What Is ?the Public'?, interacting with Augustine, O'Donovan, and Bonhoeffer and reflecting, for example, on the misguided French authorities banning forms of Muslim dress in public on the basis of false universals. Jonathan Chaplin also deals with the challenge of pluralism in modern society, and how governments can make judgments about controversial issues in the context of a variety of fundamental moral and religious convictions. The complexity and diversity of the world itself should be reflected in the complexity of such judgments.Christian character and moral virtue, supported by sound theology, is foundational to the effective witness of the church in the world. In fact, the festschrift underscores this point by bracketing the entire collection with treatments of Christian love: in the first essay Bernd Wannenwetsch explores the dialectic of faith and love in Augustine and Luther. And in the final essay we have O'Donovan himself returning to the theme of self-love, its degeneration to material self-interest, and the problems with modern notions of equality.The virtue of prudence is in large part a form of seeing things correctly (as well as making good judgments), and Hans Ulrich brings Old and New Testament material to bear on the importance of discernment. The late John Webster has a very helpful analysis of the role of sorrow in the Christian life, largely based on interaction with Thomas Aquinas.Moving from the Christian individual to corporate life in the church, we have Shinji Kayama and Joan O'Donovan. Kayama, a pastor in Yokohama, Japan, writes on preaching as moral pedagogy, drawing lessons from the different (and sometimes questionable) ways in which Augustine dealt with the challenge of re-incorporating the Donatists in the Catholic Church, and how he developed the central concept of pax ordinata. There are many valuable insights in Joan O'Donovan's reminder of the Tudor reformers' theological intentions in framing the Anglican liturgies, such as this part of her conclusion: Only the eschatological renewal of human moral agency and action through the church's practice of proclamation, centred in her common worship, can overcome the tyranny of the law . …

Islamic morality: Teaching to balance the record

The article proposes that the teaching of Islamic morality presents as an important if not urgent task for moral education. It offers the opportunity to inform a student body about a vital historical development in the formation of moral thought and action; to challenge and offset a blind spot in Western thinking about Islam in general; to challenge the ease with which radical Islamist views of Islam have captured the minds of Muslim and non-Muslim audiences alike; and, because of the contentious nature of the topic, to provide the kind of robust debate that should accompany moral pedagogy in general. The article focusses on select aspects of historical Islamic morality as exemplars of the contribution to morality made by the religious tradition.

Better living through prose composition? Moral and compositional pedagogy in ancient Greek and Roman progymnasmata

Ancient Greek and Roman compositional instruction, as evidenced in Greek handbooks on the progymnasmata and Quintilian's Institutio Oratoria, included a strong moral component. The importance of moral pedagogy to ancient teachers and theorists is seen not only in the themes and contents of the exercises, but also in their sequencing and justification.

The Philological Program of Erasmus and His Apophthegmata in the Collectanea Moralis Philosophiae of Fray Luis de Granada

During the Renaissance, many encyclopedic productions such as Collectaneas, Florilegia, Adagia, based on the aemulatio auctorum of Classical antiquity and exhibiting the ars scribendi ac ars colligendi of their authors, proliferated all over Europe. These humanists have transmitted, in their works, a perennial legacy at the service of a moral pedagogy, which is a driving force to literary genesis and creation. This process of imitatio, variatio ac renouatio converts the collector into auctor, and guides us in an intertextual construction, where the sententia’s rhetoric is developed under a promising conciliation of res et uerba. Erasmus is one of the most recognizable humanists with a leading role throughout the centuries. His works are a valuable contribution to the study of cultural context and philological framework, followed by many scholars and intellectuals such as Fray Louis of Granada. Thus, our intention is to shed light on the individual method of Granada in the composition of Collectanea Moralis Philosophiae (1571) and, at the same time, to consider how Granada’s use of apophthegmata resembles or differs from Eramus’ treatment of the genre. In this way, we will study this handbook under the meticulous scrutiny of several operative concepts, in order to discover its epistemic structure and philosophical matrix, to analyze the aesthetic and rhetorical features and to reveal the modus operandi of literary creation.

Being Ethical: Process Drama and Professional Ethics Education for Pre-service Drama Teachers

This paper outlines findings from a study exploring how participation in process drama may assist pre-service teachers to develop an enhanced sense of moral character, agency and virtue ethics. The study explores the intersection between initial teacher education, process drama, drama teaching and professional ethics education. Findings indicate that process drama offers an immersive, applied, visceral experience that enables pre-service teachers to rehearse difficult conversations, explore ethical dilemmas, model and explore how they want to be. Process drama offers a form of moral pedagogy that supports the development of a holistic professional ethic, addresses all aspects of moral literacy and provides a safe space for pre- service teacher to explore what it means to “be” ethical.

The willing reader of Duarte's Leal conselheiro

In this article, I analyze the reading practices advocated by Dom Duarte of Portugal in his Leal conselheiro, taking as a starting point their inclusion in a contemporary translation of John Cassian's Conferences. I argue that Duarte's theory of will, explained earlier in the Leal conselheiro and drawn largely from Cassian, underlies the rejection of “fixed intentions” in his hermeneutics. For both Duarte and Cassian, correct interpretation requires that the conflict between spirit and flesh in the will take place, but Duarte's perfect will is subjected to reason, whereas Cassian's is subjected to grace. From here, I argue that Duarte's privileging of experience in moral pedagogy both ties him to ascetic thought and distances him from it. Duarte's reliance on personal and familial exemplarity and avoidance of fictional exempla is modeled on what Douglas Burton-Christie has called the “desert hermeneutic,” in which experience (praxis) and interpretation form a constructive circle, and his adaptation of the desert ideal provides his moral pedagogy with a complex spiritual psychology. His exaltation of reason, however, roots both his ethics and his hermeneutics firmly in the palace, not the monastery.