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Role of the Teacher in Student Moral Development
Creating a healthy and safe classroom environment is a prerequisite for student learning success. An atmosphere of safety and morality can be achieved with the established rules and consequences of decisions, actions, and misbehavior. Depending on the age of the students and their moral development level, the teacher can either be fully responsible for moral decisions in the classroom or share it with the students.
The moral development of students is one of the foundations of pedagogy and can be viewed from the perspective of Lawrence Kohlbergs theory. Elementary and high-school students demonstrate different levels of moral development, and expecting that students in elementary school would have the same level of moral decisions as high school students is wrong. However, understanding how children interact and accept responsibility for their socialization in sociocultural norms and ethical practices allows the teacher to effectively organize the interaction of students in the classroom (Niemi, 2016, p. 68). The teacher can use the social contract at various levels of moral development.
Depending on the moral development stage, the teacher explains to students how to act ethically concerning themselves and others. For example, in Kohlbergs level 1, the teacher replaces punishment as a way of eliminating unwanted behavior with an explanation of such action, taking into account the childs point of view (Eggen & Kauchak, 2020, p. 528). Teachers adapt the socio-moral curriculum to match the goals set by proactive perceptions of students moral development (Tal et al., 2019, p. 275). The initial level of moral development presupposes the active participation of the teacher in moral decisions.
Later stages of moral development involve the use of a social contract in both student-student and student-teacher relationships. These stages include the use of techniques and methods by the teacher aimed at instilling in students the universal principles of morality, democracy, and justice (Power & Higgins-DAlessandro, 2008, p. 235). The classroom management on the last Kohlbergs levels implies responsibility for moral decisions on the part of both the teacher and the student, and the higher the level of moral development, the greater the responsibility of the student.
Social interaction and adherence to generally accepted morality play an essential role in the effectiveness of classroom management. The use of Kohlbergs theory in pedagogy helps students learn the generally accepted norms of democracy, justice, and morality. The role and influence of the teacher in making moral decisions decreases with the moral development of students.
References
Eggen, P., & Kauchak, D. (2019). Classroom Management: Developing Self-Regulated Learners. In Using Educational Psychology in Teaching (11th Edition) (11th ed., pp. 496545). Pearson.
Niemi, K. (2016). Because I point to myself as the hog: Interactional achievement of moral decisions in a classroom. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction, 9, 6879. Web.
Power, F. C., & Higgins-DAlessandro, A. (2008). The Just Community Approach to Moral Education and the Moral Atmosphere of the School. In L. Nucci & D. Narváez (Eds.), Handbook of Moral and Character Education (Educational Psychology Handbook) (1st ed., pp. 230247). Routledge.
Tal, C., Kabiab, A., Cohen, M., & Hillel Lavian, R. (2019). The Use of Repeated Narrative Writing by Teachers to Cope with Emotionally Loaded Incidents in the Classroom. In P. McDemott (Ed.), Teacher Training: Perspectives, implementation and challenges (pp. 271304). New York: Nova Science.
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