Morally stunted

As a parent and educator, I wonder about the moral health of children today. I love and enjoy them, but so many children have encountered situations and circumstances beyond their age and level of understanding that it is terrifying. With movies and television full of suggestive words and actions and abrasive language that confuses my ears or video games full of violent acts against people, animals and a multitude of inanimate objects, I wonder where sensitivity is heading. Will we become an automaton system with our stunted morals based on a lack of personal love and a sense of interconnectedness with people, nature, and the Universe itself?

In several schools I have visited, reading walls adorn the hallway. When a child reads 10, 20, or 100 books, their name goes up and then walks along the wall all year long to reach a stellar reading goal. While encouraging children to read, I also know that this process also encourages children (and their parents) to lie. It’s easy to pretend to read and then coerce a quick parent signature on a piece of paper so that the “evidence” of the reading can be delivered and the reading progress is properly noted. While a busy parent may fall into this pattern one week, when repeated week after week the child comes to believe that honesty is overrated and that wall success is much more important. Ask any kid about a similar reading set and I bet you will get an honest answer about not actually reading with a myriad of reasons why you shouldn’t go ahead and justify this lying behavior.

Working with eighth graders for many years, we usually complete a unit on moral development. Teenagers are very curious about lies and deception, honesty and truth, and how they grow or not grow over time. They wonder why little liars become big liars, why little criminals end up in jail. His examination of what is right and what is wrong is generally simple and pure; not all, of course, as some actually have a criminal mindset at a young age, usually fostered by examples from their home. Inevitably these students explain that cheating is cheating, but then they deviate from my definition of cheating. They explain with complete honesty of heart that copying an assignment in English is wrong, since that’s stealing words, but that copying a math assignment is OK, since it’s just numbers. Regardless of the background information I shared or worked to explain, they didn’t budge. Cheating had multiple levels and degrees of intensity and reasons for cheating or not. Every year I expected a moral shift toward deception as deception, but it never happened.

From the math of cheating (or not cheating, as you define it), we move on to road signs. I’m sure you are familiar with the story of the stop sign in the middle of nowhere. As you cross a deserted section of the country, you come to a four-way intersection with stop signs. With the flat area and clear views in all directions, do you have an obligation to stop and obey the sign even if it is unnecessary and seemingly silly or do you keep driving ignoring the sign because it seems useless? Is there a moral responsibility to obey the law even when it seems absurd and unjustified? You can only imagine the lively discussion and explanations. While the excitement of each class’s responses cannot be replicated for sharing here, I encourage you to find a group of teens and participate in this conversation. Definitely a mental awakening awaits us all.

Are today’s children morally stunted? Do they care less about other humans and animals than generations of the past? Are we unconsciously creating an egocentric society in which “I” counts more than “we”? I suppose that if you look at advertisements and political disputes you will realize that these are the examples we are giving, where misinformation is more valued than the truth. It becomes clear that our example of honesty and sincerity must come into play if we really want to ensure morally strong adults in the future.