Ethics should be taught alongside other subjects

Ethics should be taught alongside other subjects in school.


Success is very much driven by one's ethics. Ethical values have their importance in every sphere of our life. It is always important to practice good ethics from the formative age. We should instill ethical values into our habit to reap permanent benefits. We all spend quite a lot of time in school during our early age, so it is the best place to emulate good habits.

For

Ethical values are losing ground because of greed and violence. Also, there is a confusion between ethical and unethical behaviors. Beginning the ethical education at the dawn not dusk of our lives makes sense and school is the best place to inculcate such values. Not having such class in the curriculum is not doing any good. Students know how to earn but don't know how to live and behave in society. Ethics class won't be a formulaic affair, it will just deal with those values and behavior that are acceptable in society.

Against

-Ethics can't be taught. They have no standard definition. Ethics mean different things to different people. Some think it is obeying rules and laws while others relate it to religious affairs etc.
-The best teacher can teach ethics by just being.
-Schools already have vast syllabus to cover and they should stick to their core area.
-Ethics are not taught explicitly in the schools but there are many moral stories in English and Hindi subjects that are embodiment of ethics.
-We are already being taught in school the importance of non violence, acceptability of sharing and unacceptability of bullying etc.
-Every school has its discipline to be followed by student, we just need to communicate the importance of discipline in our lives and not just force them to follow.

Conclusion

Although it is a great idea to have ethics class in school, but we already have so many moral building activities in school that extra class of ethics sound so boring. Ethics can't be taught explicitly, they can only be passed on through various activities like sports and other team work activities. We have all these activities in abundance in all schools.
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    Discussion

  • RE: Ethics should be taught alongside other subjects -Rajani Sharma (12/14/13)
  • For:

    - Teaching ethics alongside other subjects in school is a great suggestion by Aga Khan.
    - Today if we will within our society, we will find that ethics is crumbling in every sphere of life, from politics to sports, medicine to police, marriage etc. It is need of the hour.
    - There are many confusions relating to ethical behaviour versus non ethical behaviour. And this confusion can be cleared by teaching ethics to the honest and impacting fresh minds. Childhood is the best time for any education.
    - Today, we are trying to have a good music, science or maths teacher for our children, then why not a good ethical education too.
    - We have rich literature on moral ways. Then why to deprive our children from such learning which will make them a better person in future.
    - India’s young generation is the future of Nation. Thus, with other teaching they should be taught moral values which will guide them to lead their nation in a right direction.
    - Due to our present system which is filled with greed and violence, we loosing on ethical values. This makes it altogether a very crucial thing to be taught in schools so that future of the nation makes a better society, free from greed and violence.
    - School is the best place to inculcate ethical values in children at younger age.
    - Today students are taught how to earn their living but they are not taught the how they have to earn that living or what values they have to follow to earn their living.

    Against:

    - Ethics cannot be taught in schools as they don’t have set of standards to be followed.
    - It can only be taught by being an example of it and not by teaching chapters of Ethics book in classrooms.
    - Ethics has different equations for different people. For example: for some people ethics means knowing the difference between what is right and what is wrong. And for some people it is following their religious beliefs. To others it may be obeying the laws.
    - Ethics as a subject is not required in the curriculum as we find many stories in Hindi and English subjects which are embodiment of ethics which teaches us the moral values in life.
    - Ethics is a discipline which should be communicated to the students and should not be forced to follow.
    - In a diverse country like India, it would not be easy to include commonly acceptable ethics in the curriculum.
    - Children already have crowed curricula which don’t require any addition of ethic class.
    - School conducts extra curriculum activities which includes moral building activities. The extra classes on ethics would be boring for students.
    - Addition of Ethic as a subject will add the burden on the young shoulders of students. As it will increase the weight of their bags.