The Church: And Its Impact In Education

THE CHURCH And its Impact in Education

Morality • The Church and Morality • This ‘necessary connection’ view centres on any attempt to equate concepts like ‘morally good’ with ‘according to God’s will or purposes’.

• Morals and Values are greatly influenced by the Church

• Morals, or morality, have to do with human behaviour • It is about what ought to be done, as distinct from what is in fact done.

• It has to do with influencing behaviour and this presupposes a certain amount of knowledge to be acquired by the pupil.

• At the lowest logical level there are moral practices, like telling the truth, keeping promises and paying debts.

• At a logically higher level there are moral theories, which try to give a general account of, or a justification of, conclusions about what ought to be done in practice.

• In its strongest form, the conviction would be that moral and religious teaching are essential to education, in that education is not really possible without them.

• The moral philosopher is concerned with the actual usage of moral language, with concepts like ‘good’ and ‘right’ and ‘duty’, and with the validity and acceptability of theories which are offered to justify moral decisions and judgments.

• The view that morals and education are necessarily connected springs partly from the belief that education is the initiation of a pupil into areas of knowledge and understanding which are themselves valuable.

• The implication here, more often stated than argued, is that the value, or worthwhileness, involved is a moral quality, so that when one is teaching mathematics or science or history one is serving a moral end.

• The real relevance of ‘worthwhileness’ to morality here is that no subject would be regarded as worthwhile in the educational sense if it is immoral

• It is claimed that morals, like religion, is one of these ways of understanding the human situation, and that without an entry into these specific areas a man lacks the basis for rationality of this particular kind.

• ‘Properly

educated’ means, amongst other things, having had some moral training.

Desirable Part of Education • Moral education is a constituent part of the enterprise of education, and necessary in the practical sense that without it education is not complete.

• has to do with influencing behavior and this presupposes a certain amount of knowledge to be acquired by the pupil.

• ESP / GMRC

• Since moral education is closely linked with moral training, a person who was fully educated, morally, would be one who not only knew what he ought to do and why he ought to do it, but was also disposed to act consistently in the light of this knowledge.

• Education is regarded as a predominantly ‘moral’ enterprise.

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