Instilling dignity in children

On Dec. 8 the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences (APN) hosted a meeting to discuss how to raise children and youth in a moral and ethical fashion in today’s complicated social conditions. Raising children is always a topical issue that draws proponents of many views. As an old saying goes, every adult considers himself an expert in the field. The current generation of young people was unfortunate to grow up in an epoch of changes: after discarding communist values, we found ourselves in an ideological vacuum. Today there are no uniform national morals capable of counteracting those propagated by our children’s favorite heroes of Hollywood action movies. “All this instills in children a spirit of anxiety, cruelty, uncertainty about their future,” says academician Olha Sukhomlynska. “This is the background of juvenile prostitution, homelessness, drug addiction, and other negative phenomena.” In a word, something must be done. But teachers and bureaucrats are unable to reach a consensus.

Six months ago President Yushchenko instructed the Ministry of Education and Science to prepare a new grade school training course known as “Ethics of Faith.” The originally proposed title was “Christian Ethics” but since non-Christians live and study in Ukraine, the training course was transformed into the more politically correct “Ethics of Faith.” The education ministry picked up on the idea and, amazingly, quickly set about implementing it. It would seem that the easiest way to resolve the problem of this lack of secular ethics would be to institute the teaching of religious morals, which have stood the test of time and also tally with the basic legal principles of the state. Teachers, however, are opposed to this practice. The problem is not just the constitutional separation of schools from the church.

“At first, the edict was signed about introducing the new school subject, and only later another one concerning the development of its fundamentals. How can you teach a subject that still has to be worked out? Who can define the ethics of faith today?” Olena Sukhomlynska states her first argument. She believes that in certain respects public morals have noticeably departed from Christian ones and are propagating polarized values. Thus, individuality is considered the greatest value in today’s civilized world, and the main task of the state is to reduce to a minimum the worries and troubles of every citizen, whereas the Christian faith sees suffering as the only road to happiness; the more sufferings, the more fortunate the individual.

In fact, bureaucrats are planning to go even further, having revised the fundamentals of teaching biology in schools, obviously so that Darwinism does not contradict the divine theory of the origin of man. This approach has outraged scientists and schoolteachers. The latter regard it as a return to Soviet radicalism, except that now teachers are forced to spread religiosity instead of militant atheism.

What are teachers proposing? First, children should be protected as much as possible from negative information — action movies, computer shoot-’em-ups, even television news. Second, they must be constantly instructed on what is good and bad, normal and abnormal. Third, our children must learn about art. A music school, a dance or drama group, or good literature will certainly help their cultural development. Every family must have its own morals, whether secular or religious. “We must interpret the notion of spirituality on a broader scope,” says Sukhomlynska. “This is not only religion, but also culture, anthroposophy, ideas of what is beautiful, unity of laws, and the cosmos.” The Academy of Pedagogical Sciences says that a course on ethics is necessary for schoolchildren and is prepared to develop one.

There is another problem connected with teaching ethics in school: teachers. Are they sufficiently spiritual and moral to teach their students about morals and spirituality? Today the prestige of the teaching profession is about the same as teachers’ salaries. Accordingly, the profession is not attracting the finest candidates. “How can you raise a person with a feeling of his own dignity in humiliating conditions?” asks Sukhomlynska. This is something that the education ministry and the head of state should ponder.