The Future of Education

Many teachers consider moral education, teaching students how to be good persons, as an important part of their work. Unfortunately, teachers often lack the proper tools to implement moral education in their day-to-day lessons. Even worse, teachers appear to be inadvertently teaching students that morality is purely subjective. Moral subjectivism, especially the kind of moral subjectivism where every person can define “right” and “wrong” whichever way they please, is detrimental to both one’s own moral life as well as society as a whole. Therefore, one of the goals of moral education should be to combat this form of moral subjectivism. As a secondary school teacher in philosophy and PhD student at the University of Amsterdam I am currently researching moral subjectivism in secondary education. In this paper I will argue that one specific tool that is used internationally in both primary and secondary education, the fact or opinion worksheet, can be seen as an example of how teachers unintentionally teach students that morality is subjective. I will then show that, with limited modification, the same worksheet can be used to engage students in a critical discussion about the status of moral statements as either objective facts or subjective opinions. The modified fact or opinion worksheet and its subsequent discussion can be seen as an interesting starting point to introduce moral education into one’s lessons and can be used in any course with limited foreknowledge. 

Knowledge: moral education, ethics, fact/opinion dichotomy, moral subjectivism;