The Importance of Moral Education for Students With Disabilities

  As an elementary special education teacher, a belief that I firmly hold is that moral (or character) education is very important from a young age. I also had recently listened to a great TED talk that really stuck with me on why moral education is important for younger student. 

I am almost positive that all teachers have worked with students that have experienced trauma.  For me what really opened my eyes to the effect of trauma was when I moved to the school I am currently at.  The school houses the special education program for students with more significant social-emotional disabilities.  What really took me by surprise was that all of these students had experienced some sort of abuse as a child. For reference, these were all kindergarten through second graders.

Another thing that really stood out to me was something their teacher told me: many of these students act out in violent or inappropriate ways because that is the only thing they have ever seen or known. That to me was the most powerful reason as to why character education is essential in school. Leaving it up to parents is not always a solution for the students who go from home to home with no consistent learning of morals, or students that unfortunately have to see some bad situations. 

Phil Temple’s TED Talk was something I could relate with, even though I worked with younger kids.  Phil discusses that when moral instruction was directly taught to the people he worked with, they were able to internalize it and use it when situations arose. I have experienced that with many of my students with social emotional disabilities, especially when they are younger. 

In the last two years I have been at this school, I have had two students that have come in with reports from past teachers that the student should be considered for the social emotional class because they are “aggressive” and spend 90% of their time outside of the classroom. Within  a few months of direct instruction of moral or character education, they were able to have no incidence of aggression and were with their class at all times. I also saw, similar to the TED talk, that when situations arose, they were able to internalize the situation to handle it in a more appropriate manner.  Similar things have happened in our social emotional classroom when character education was directly taught to students. In the two years the teacher was there, 3 of her students have internalized what they learned enough to be transferred out of the social emotional classroom, and was successful with their general education peers. 

Within the debate of whether or not moral education has a place in the classroom, some people may think that it should be left up to the parents to teach the morals they deem important.  From what I have experienced, that does not take into consideration students with unstable households. 

Berkowitz (2012), discusses various ways to implement character education that does not involve imposing our beliefs. Two of the points I see as most important are trust and induction.  Especially with students with unstable homes, the building of trust is important when teaching students about care. If students do not trust you, there is no way for them to know that what you are teaching them is right or wrong is indeed the truth.  Additionally, induction allows them to reflect on the character traits and how they are (or are not) present in their behavior. Induction allows students to internalize what they learn to create their own reflections on their behaviors, and what improvements they want to make. 

Overall, as a teacher, we need to keep in mind how we teach our students to be successful, and that goes beyond academics and grades. Moral education allows students to be successful in their friendships and jobs in the long term, so it should be a very important part of the classroom. 

Berkowitz, M. W. (2012). Moral and character education. In K. R. Harris, S. Graham, & T. Urdan (Eds.), APA educational psychology handbook, Vol. 2: Individual differences and cultural and contextual factors (pp. 247-264). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.