Back in September, we explored the pros and cons of trying to ‘teach morality’ in schools. That column has bounced around in my head since then. Partly this is due to lots of points we didn’t have space to address. Partly this is due to another excellent cartoon from one of our favorite philosophers, Calvin and Hobbes.
And, now, partly for a brand new reason.
In the Calvin/Hobbes strip (see below), our friends are roaming in the woods. Calvin asks: “Hobbes, do you think our morality is defined by our actions or by what’s in our hearts?” Hobbes seems to pause, and responds, “I think our actions SHOW what’s in our hearts.” I feel like there should be a ‘mic drop’ or something here.
And, that brings us to a disturbing new wrinkle on an old problem for schools. Bullying. While bullying has always been around, it is a fact that the dynamics, the frequency, and the types of bullying have changed dramatically since the 2016 election.
A recent (Feb 13) quite-extensive article in the Washington Post reports on this. I encourage you to find and read the article. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/local/school-bullying-trump-words/).
Just some (of the many!) slightly-edited excerpts.
“Two kindergartners in Utah told a Latino boy that President Trump would send him back to Mexico. In Tennessee, a group of middle-schoolers linked arms, imitating the president’s proposed border wall as they refused to let nonwhite students pass. In Ohio, another group of middle-schoolers surrounded a mixed-race sixth-grader and told the girl: “This is Trump country.” Kids as young as 6 [are] mimicking the president’s insults and the cruel way he delivers them.
“It’s gotten way worse since Trump got elected,” said Ashanty Bonilla, 17, a Mexican American high school junior in Idaho who faced so much ridicule from classmates last year that she transferred. “They hear it. They think it’s okay. The president says it. Why can’t they?”
Please. This is not intended to be political in any usual sense. This is NOT about the political policies of either party, and shouldn’t be interpreted as such. It is about a leader who – we must face it – is morally bankrupt, regardless of the party he claims to serve, and whose examples are ‘teaching’ in scary ways.
And I certainly don’t claim to be anywhere near a model of virtue myself. But I do know this. It hasn’t been that long ago that our country would never have elected such a leader from either party, and neither party would have allowed it to continue had it somehow happened. What are we teaching our kids about morality and mutual respect – and about citizenship and government service?
So, how can schools help? Here’s one small example, from the article. At Arundel High School in Gambrills, Md., A “Global Community Citizenship” class is now mandatory for all freshmen in the district. It pushes students to explore their similarities and differences.
Principal Gina Davenport notes: “We teach that we can disagree with each other without walking away being enemies — which we don’t see play out in the press, or in today’s political debates.”
Since the class debuted in fall 2017, disciplinary referrals for disruption and disrespect have decreased by 25 percent each school year, Davenport said. Meanwhile, the school’s speech/debate team membership has doubled.
This is clearly something that affects all of us – and the foundations of our American values. If we are to recover, we must ALL – parents, schools, society – begin to re-instill decency and morality in our society. Let’s all make America TRULY great again – but in the right ways.
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