2. The peculiarity of morality courses
Nov. 22nd, 2007 11:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
franceslievensOne thing that isn't on the job description, but you constantly must do as a morality teacher, is explaining what the course is about. Not only to foreigners who don't understand the Belgian concept of world view courses, or to kids who follow one of the religious courses, but also to parents who send their children to the morality course. The obvious reason is that these parents themselves have had an education at Catholic schools (the majority of Belgian schools are Catholic), but aren't religious. The choice for the morality course is obvious in that case, but they haven't got the faintest idea what one does during those two hours every week.
Sometimes I forget what I'm supposed to teach. I am a child of a Catholic upbringing myself, studied ethics and morality out of interest, and only ended up teaching because there was a job available. I found myself liking to work with the little ones and intend to do it for a while longer. It is indeed time to write down what this course is that I spend so much time preparing and teaching every week (I teach 24 hours for a full time) – for your sake, but also for mine.
The morality courses are backed up by the humanist association. In that way it resembles the religious courses, which are backed up by the official representatives of the respective religions. The immediate consequence of this fact is that it isn't the department of education who decides what I'm supposed to teach in class, but said humanist association. Because of this you'll hear me talking about my inspector/advisor (a very nice lady btw, contrary to her colleague who's responsible for secondary school). She is the one to assess my work, and to check whether I'm actualy representative for the humanist values. Of course I do not work for her in the strict sense of the word. The headmaster of the school I teach at is my employer, and is allowed to take disciplinary measures for everything that has nothing to do with the content of my subject – e.g. I've hit a pupil. Because I work in two schools, I've got two employers. One I usualy refer to as The Head. The other got christened Crazy Headteacher, just a couple of months ago.
Content-wise the themes I discuss, are pretty much up to me (or up to the kids). It isn't knowledge that comes first, but certain skills and attitudes with regard to values. Most important is that children learn to know the values they hold dear, learn to criticise these values, and learn to understand not everyone holds the same opinions. The entirety of the course over twelve years (six years primary school, six years secondary school) works with 5 main goals. Achieving these goals is a constant proces that should go on when students have left secondary school. With these 5 goals I have indeed summarised what this course is all about:
Sometimes I forget what I'm supposed to teach. I am a child of a Catholic upbringing myself, studied ethics and morality out of interest, and only ended up teaching because there was a job available. I found myself liking to work with the little ones and intend to do it for a while longer. It is indeed time to write down what this course is that I spend so much time preparing and teaching every week (I teach 24 hours for a full time) – for your sake, but also for mine.
The morality courses are backed up by the humanist association. In that way it resembles the religious courses, which are backed up by the official representatives of the respective religions. The immediate consequence of this fact is that it isn't the department of education who decides what I'm supposed to teach in class, but said humanist association. Because of this you'll hear me talking about my inspector/advisor (a very nice lady btw, contrary to her colleague who's responsible for secondary school). She is the one to assess my work, and to check whether I'm actualy representative for the humanist values. Of course I do not work for her in the strict sense of the word. The headmaster of the school I teach at is my employer, and is allowed to take disciplinary measures for everything that has nothing to do with the content of my subject – e.g. I've hit a pupil. Because I work in two schools, I've got two employers. One I usualy refer to as The Head. The other got christened Crazy Headteacher, just a couple of months ago.
Content-wise the themes I discuss, are pretty much up to me (or up to the kids). It isn't knowledge that comes first, but certain skills and attitudes with regard to values. Most important is that children learn to know the values they hold dear, learn to criticise these values, and learn to understand not everyone holds the same opinions. The entirety of the course over twelve years (six years primary school, six years secondary school) works with 5 main goals. Achieving these goals is a constant proces that should go on when students have left secondary school. With these 5 goals I have indeed summarised what this course is all about:
- Achieving personal autonomy
- Involvement and participation
- Humanism
- Commitment
- Give meaning
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Date: 2007-11-23 11:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-25 04:39 pm (UTC)(2) The way I teach. It is all about activating the kids. They should think for themselves, search for information themselves, do stuff. It isn't always as easy to find good work forms. They talk a lot in my classes. I think that's what I try to achieve most of all: that they respect other's opinions and that they think about their own opinions and try to find out why they hold certain values dear.
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Date: 2007-11-24 08:30 pm (UTC)It's interesting to see that most of these goals can be found among the general objectives of education that are supposed to be taught to all pupils in the schools in my state.
The first two are definitely part of our education guidelines. Whether we are supposed to teach Humanism probably depends on the definition.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-25 04:47 pm (UTC)We have affinity with the German course Lebenskunde, and use a fair bit of the material that has been made for these courses.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-25 06:58 pm (UTC)Oh, I didn't mean to question the uniqueness and need for morality courses - I actually think they're a very good idea. We've got "Practical Philosophy" in Year 9 and 10, which is basically a similar course. We don't call it Lebenskunde - I think that's the word that is used in the former east.
There is added value in these courses, because while we're supposed to teach these life skills by stealth so to speak, in Morality or whatever you may call it, it is the focus and you make it much more explicit that you're teaching them how to think for themselves. Talking about values happens in most subjects, but it's rarely the central goal, and in general, we don't highlight how values are formed.
On the other hand, I also teach "Gesellschaftslehre", which is an uneasy conglomerate of History, Geography and Social Studies, i.e. talking about society and politics, and in this subject there is indeed a huge overlap in themes, but as I said above, 'morality' isn't the centrepiece.
For example,
no subject
Date: 2007-11-25 09:40 pm (UTC)My friend who teaches English and Dutch likes to nick my subjects, but he never has the opportunity to make his students question their ideas like I do. He's always complaining kids don't have the skills to criticise anymore, to which I reply they should learn it in my classes. He's always very happy at least someone is trying to form their critical minds.
But trying is indeed the word. I'm never quite convinced I succeed... :-(