Instilling moral values

Alaul Alam :

Since the onset of the civilization, moral lessons have been an integral part to show the right paths of the humanity. Even in the pre-education era people of every community would have some moral practices that made them distinguishable in the ages. It is evident that in the ancient Greece there was a story teller named Aesop whose stories would mainly focus moral lessons correcting people in the guise of entertaining them. So the trend of enlightening people with moral lessons is an age old practice. Through the centuries the world has experienced the war between good and bad spirit that teaches the humanity that those who cultivate ethical practices deserve the highest echelon.
The true meaning of education is to uphold the teachings of how to lead life ethically. Education builds awareness against any prejudice irrespective of races and religions. It teaches how to be kind and tolerant of the humanity. In today’s world the opportunity of receiving education has been widely accessible. But how far the education of an individual contributes to the society and nation? In most cases education makes people self-centered and being kind, wise and ethical is rare in these days. The question may be pertinent to raise; are our education devoid of ethical values? But we know that ethical values must be the driving force of any learning or education.
It is obvious that children learn from family and their parents. The parental attitudes and behaviors influence children directly. According to psychotherapists, children do not show the same behavior when they talk to their domestic care givers and their close ones. As children imitate their parents and when they observe that their parents talk to their subordinate domestic helps in a harsh disposition, children try to show the same behavior thinking this appropriate. Moreover, in many cases, male children are allowed to be tough and female children are taught to be submissive.
However, in the recent years moral education is being greatly emphasized as in many cases we see that children are devoid of values. The policy makers have included moral education as an integrated part of education at school and college levels. Along with moral education, religion, history and cultural studies have been included to the curricula to shape the youths’ minds.
It is obvious that knowledge can never be considered as skills as long as it is used for practical purposes. Many claim that teachers’ unethical practices have detrimental impacts on students’ mind. Many teachers are alleged that they are involved in making quick money by adopting illegal means such as publishing guide books, establishing coaching center etc.
On top of that, they are involved in many unethical activities risking students’ life and career. There are many teachers who completely lack values. There is an English saying “when gold rust, then what will iron do?” If teachers lack principles, students must be misguided. At different times dailies have exposed that teachers engineered academic results of students favored by them so they would later be recruited as lecturers. Apart from this, teachers are alleged for conducting fake research and doing plagiarism and other irregularities.
Again, we see that in these days teens and youths are getting addicted to online platforms. They prefer using time virtually to interacting people in the real life circumstances. Our traditional social norms and behavior hardly attract the children; rather they are involved in unhealthy competition of the unhealthy entertainment.
They consider our culture outdated and love to express greetings in the western manner. As the youths lack values, they are involved in crimes and many other anti-social activities. Due to absence of moral values, they are confused to lead life in a decent way. Sociologists opine that parents cannot deny their responsibility in this regard. In many cases parents are indifferent to teaching children ethics.
However, making children equipped with humane qualities parents and family members should cultivate morality in their everyday life. From the very early stage children should be taught what is right and wrong. Apart from religious teachings, parents should engage their children into practice orientation. It is imperative to involve every child in some good works such as helping the poor, behaving respectfully to the elders and being affectionate to the younger, etc.
Sound family education works a lot to make children grow up with humane qualities. On top of that, in schools teachers have enormous responsibilities to guide the learners with ethics. In this case first teachers should be ethical in their behaviors. More importantly, moral education should be taught not to complete the syllabus but to make students feel the essence that prioritizes values in life.

(Alaul Alam teaches at Prime University, is also a research
 scholar at the IBS).