Another Run at Moral Truths in Education

I didn't handle the previous post on this topic well, but I feel like there are some important issues at stake so I'm taking another run at it. In the last few years there have been a number of schools and school systems with mass cheating problems, most infamously in Atlanta where the teachers themselves were participating, and I believe that the incidences we know about are just the tip of the ice berg. There are almost certainly a number of factors at work in explaining the recent problems with cheating, but my chief concern is that rather than teaching critical thinking, our schools are destroying students' ability to think critically, that there are some terrible results of teaching this way, and that we as a society must do better.

I will again begin with professor of philosophy Justin P. McBrayer's New York Times article on the topic.

What would you say if you found out that our public schools were teaching children that it is not true that it’s wrong to kill people for fun or cheat on tests? Would you be surprised?

I was. As a philosopher, I already knew that many college-aged students don’t believe in moral facts. While there are no national surveys quantifying this phenomenon, philosophy professors with whom I have spoken suggest that the overwhelming majority of college freshmen in their classrooms view moral claims as mere opinions that are not true or are true only relative to a culture.

What I didn’t know was where this attitude came from.

 He goes on to describe his discovery that his 2nd grade son was being taught the following definitions for 'fact' and 'opinion' and that part of learning critical thinking for his son's class meant sorting claims into the categories of either fact or opinion.

Fact: Something that is true about a subject and can be tested or proven.

Opinion: What someone thinks, feels, or believes.

He did some research and found that this was standard across the Common Core curriculum, including in higher grades.

What does he claim is wrong about this? First, these definitions conflate truth with proof: truth is "a feature of the world" and proof is "a feature of our mental lives." Something can be true but unprovable, and sometimes we "prove" something that turns out to be false. Second, students are directed to sort claims into a list of either facts or opinions, but many claims are both: If you believe something that is true, then it is both a fact and an opinion.

How does this connect to the amorality or moral relativism of today's freshmen? According to McBrayer, schools that use Common Core spend 12 years indoctrinating students with the idea that claims are either fact or opinion but not both, and that all value statements fall into the opinion category. In doing so, they are thoroughly convincing students that there can be no moral truths. Thus, the idea that cheating or murder are wrong is just someone's opinion, and if someone has a different opinion, that's OK.

Additionally, this way of teaching critical thinking produces a powerful doublethink in students' minds. Schools do teach morality in their codes of conduct, such things as academic integrity, student rights, student responsibilities, etc. But according to their own critical thinking instruction, these are mere opinions, and many students see that. Many others, I believe, are taught not to see the difference at all and doublethink becomes normal for them.

What is the answer? As McBrayer points out, the actual Common Core standard is to sort things into facts, opinions, and reasoned judgments. However, apparently teaching 'reasoned judgment' is being left out, but that is exactly what we should be focusing on. He states:

We can do better. Our children deserve a consistent intellectual foundation. Facts are things that are true. Opinions are things we believe. Some of our beliefs are true. Others are not. Some of our beliefs are backed by evidence. Others are not. Value claims are like any other claims: either true or false, evidenced or not. The hard work lies not in recognizing that at least some moral claims are true but in carefully thinking through our evidence for which of the many competing moral claims is correct. That’s a hard thing to do. But we can’t sidestep the responsibilities that come with being human just because it’s hard.

While there are other factors at work in the recent glut of cheating scandals, I agree with McBrayer that this is one factor, and I think it's important that we be aware of this failure in our education system. To the extent that we can, we need to advocate for changing the way this is taught in our local schools. And, to the extent that we have the opportunity, we need to correct this idea in students, whether we are teachers or not.

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PS I'll make another run at whether there are moral truths or not, and if so whether we can ever prove them, in another post.

Discussion Plutarch.

Ok, I hope everybody has had a chance to read the lives mentioned here.

So, what do you all think? Was Plutarch's comparison apt?

Discuss. Support your arguement.

UPDATE: Bumped to the top by Grim because of the importance of the discussion; newer posts below.

Plutarch's Lives

I've had to go back and read a bit of this, and so I'll beg indulgence on the tardiness of it.

Most often these days any published Plutarch seems to be merely chunks of his original work--for instance, my first experience was a Penguin classic called "Fall of the Roman Republic" which had all the relevant Roman lives for the 1st century BC. But none of the Greek lives, much less the comparisons. This is sad, as it obscures Plutarch's purpose a great deal. However, I was able to find a print copy of the complete lives that Barnes & Noble has recently issued as part of it's "Library of Essential Reading".

Now, I am traditional in that I prefer my books in hand, rather than online, but in the spirit of the times, the internet has become the world's library. So I have found online a complete transcription of the Lives here. (Send Mr. Thayer a thank you note--He seems to have retyped rather than scanned the text--quite an undertaking.)

Obviously the next thing to do was to pick which lives to read (and feel free to read them all). I had at least one life in mind and but then considered several others, but finally went back with my first thought.

So, we will read the pair of Alcibiades (Greek, 5th century BC) and Coriolanus (Roman 5th century BC). Make sure you read the comparison as well.

And if agreeable, we'll commence with some sort of discussion next Monday. And if people really like it, well read some more.