Beyond the pros and cons of the current introduction of Morals to compulsory education
Associate Professor, School of Arts and Letters,
Meiji University
Morals was made an official subject for elementary schools from April 2018, and it will also become one for junior high schools in 2019. This is in part a response to the still ongoing bullying problem, and while there are hopes for moral education, there are also many areas for concern.
The introduction of Morals as a special subject will provide an opportunity to consider various competing values
Incidentally, do you know the difference between the academic meaning of the two words, “justice” and “good”? The concept for the former one, “justice” includes the ideas of fairness and justness, and what is required is regarded as an absolute whatever the process may be. In other words, justice must be required in principle and unfairness must be avoided whatever the time or wherever the situation. However, there are various forms that are possible for “good.” For example, there are some people who think that being employed by a business, working hard at your job, and earning money so that your family can live comfortably is a good way of living, while some people think not being constrained by an organization, seeking a job that you want to do, and living a slow life in tune with nature is a good life for them. Both of these views of life are not compatible, but both of these are ways of living that you have to accept. In other words, the true nature of “good” is relative and multifaceted, and no single, absolute version exists. If lessons in moral education enable the establishment of a place where children can come across and recognize these various values of other people and the possibilities of the diversities of “good,” I think, it may lead to the cultivation of a very meaningful approach in modern society where the progress of globalization increases respect for diversity.
Moral education will depend greatly on the educational capabilities of the teacher in the classroom
On the other hand, there are also concerns. Above all, it is thought that for moral education to be effective it will depend greatly on the capabilities of each individual teacher in the classroom. Three particular requisites were set forth when Morals was made an official subject by the MEXT. The first was the adoption of authorized textbooks, which I would like to talk about later. The second was the introduction of evaluations. Usually, a subject’s evaluation results are expressed in an objective numerical value on a report card, but this shall not be applied for moral education, and instead there will be a recorded written assessment. That is hoped to be a more positive evaluation in the form of a continuous summation, and the MEXT has presented points for evaluation in a number of forms, but it is rather abstract and it has to be said that some parts don’t seem to be relevant. It is thought that this is causing confusion among teachers in schools, who are wondering in what way they should proceed with evaluating morals, or whether we can evaluate morals in the first place. In addition, the third point that has been stressed is that no special subject certificate has been prepared for Morals. Currently, the class teacher basically teaches one Morals class for one period a week. Students who are aiming to become elementary or junior high school teachers have been required to take lessons related to moral education, but I think for many teachers already in school they will have to take the opportunities provided through teacher training or the periodic renewal courses of teaching licenses to closely check once again what is additionally required of them. Originally it was thought that moral education should be taught in the everyday, general education activities of the school, such as homeroom, classes, school events and club activities. Integrating these together to teach it as a subject, will directly ask the teacher’s educational capabilities including an approach through trial and error.
Here, I’d like to touch upon the first point that I mentioned earlier, the adoption of authorized textbooks. Originally, after World War II a “time for ‘Moral education’” was first required to be a part of compulsory education in 1958, with the proviso that “it was not to be treated as a subject in the conventional sense.” At first, there was deep-seated criticism regarding its introduction, and the rate of implementation was less than sufficient. In 1965, the then Ministry of Education, Science and Culture put out a document of guidelines called “Reading materials for morals,” and from then on, the importance of supplementary reading teaching materials as resources to help emotional understanding was presented and highlighted. Although, as a matter of fact schools only ever really used the makeshift set of teaching materials that were traditionally called “Morals textbooks” as supplementary reading materials, and each school was able to use a variety of other teaching materials at their discretion. However, this time, due to Morals becoming an official subject, to begin with the use of the authorized textbooks has become extremely important. Whether lessons should involve a teacher simply conveying the items and contents of the “government curriculum guidelines” while taking into account the textbooks and teacher’s guides, or aiming for a lesson that stays at purely using the materials to raise questions and gets the children and students to think for themselves, will depend largely on the attitude of the teachers in the classroom. For example, as was recently shown on NHK’s “Close-up Gendai Plus” (broadcast on April 23, 2018), symbolic teaching materials such as the famous story “Hoshino’s two-base hit” (by Kinetaro Yoshida, published in 1947) that was noted in many authorized textbooks of moral education, have been the subject of a lot of attention. In a baseball match, a boy called Hoshino ignores his manager’s instruction to bunt and gets a two-base hit instead, which results in winning the match, but after the match he is admonished for not obeying his manager’s instructions and breaking the rules. This story suggests the importance of keeping rules, being a team player by not upsetting the team’s harmony, accepting criticism and reflecting deeply on your behavior, but it’s also apt to be interpreted as a student being dominated by an authoritarian coach’s instructions, and brings to mind a certain unhappy incident at a university’s American football team. Should the message of this story be conveyed to the children and students as important morally just as it is, or should the actions of Hoshino and the words of his manager be used as subjects to get the all the students to think, including about right and wrong, as the direction of the lesson will be totally different depending on which perspective is taken. By the way, the author of this story, Kinetaro Yoshida, was a liberal English literature scholar, who also taught at Meiji University as a professor of the department of literary criticism, and he was involved in founding the “Japanese Children Library (Nihon Shokokumin Bunko),” together with the renowned humanist, Yuzo Yamamoto and Genzaburo Yoshino. There is also research that points out that Yoshida’s own intention was always to think about “democratic attitudes” through the close examination of this work. In any case, when it comes to the interpretation of the contents of the teaching materials textbooks, there will surely be a need for teachers to think critically and rationally at all times about how closely it is adhering to the initial objective of moral education of “thinking about things in a multifaceted, diverse way from a broad outlook, based on the understanding of various ethical values”
Will moral education lead to the cultivation of patriotism?
Actuality, after Morals has been made a special subject, the study clause that was established regarding the teaching of an “attitude of love of country and respect for our country’s traditions and culture” has remained in the current “Government curriculum guidelines.” However, with the current rapid increase in globalization, practical problems may arise as it is reasonable to assume that there will be children in the classroom with various roots and there may be children among them who do not possess Japanese nationality. If a teacher finds themselves in this situation, they are faced with the extremely difficult problem of how to absorb the contents of the Government course guidelines items, and how to cultivate children with a multifaceted, diverse point of view/perspective. As the Supreme Court precedent stated, the Government curriculum guidelines are legally binding. Teachers in the classroom are obligated to touch upon the contents in the guidance plans at least once. However, as mentioned earlier when discussing dealing with evaluation and authorized textbooks, it can be said that it will all depend greatly on the teacher in the classroom’s capability and the balance of their approach.
Big possibilities are expected from Morals
In my specialist field of Educational Ideology, there has long been a general point of view that educational practices always involve a type of arbitrary violence. In other words, education comes with pushing the enforcement of “given a priori norms” and the “common knowledge of society” for innocent children, and from one aspect it is understood to be an exceedingly violent social device. Although education is also simultaneously a thing that is indispensable for children to go on living. For example, memorization of multiplication tables is a compulsory activity, but that is probably knowledge that is better to have to live in society, also complex numerical operations derived from learning multiplication tables at times help refine the ability to think logically, and furthermore pleasure gained from advanced mathematical insights can also deepen learning. In this way, even though the social activity of education may be accompanied by a certain type of violence it can be seen as an integral “necessary evil” that is essential for becoming a member of society, and as I’ve mentioned in this column moral education can also be understood as something that is inherently extremely ambivalent. On the other hand, this new subject is also full of rich possibilities. In coordination with other subjects, it’s more than possible that it can deepen the meaning of educational practices, and perhaps it could even be hoped that there’s a possibility that it becomes a foundation of general education itself. And I think it might be one of the main keys to an approach to learning that cultivates an autonomous, interactive stance that touches upon multiple values.
* The information contained herein is current as of August 2018.
* The contents of articles on Meiji.net are based on the personal ideas and opinions of the author and do not indicate the official opinion of Meiji University.
Research fields:
Educational anthropology, educational ideology
Research themes:
(1) Educational ideology research focusing on Critical theory in America
(2) Pedagogical re-examination of the concept of moral autonomy
(3) Construction of political educational anthropology
[Keywords] Autonomy and heteronomy, care, modernity
Main books and papers:
◆“Kyoiku Genri” (Education Principles) (Co-author) Minerva Shobo, 2018
◆“Waaku de Manabu Kyoikukateiron” (Curriculum Theory Learned from Work) (Co-author) Nakanishiya Shoten, 2018
◆“Kyoiku Shiso Jiten [Zohokaiteiban]” (Encyclopedia of Educational Thoughts and Ideas [Enlarged and Revised Edition]) (Headword author) Keiso Shobo, 2017
◆“Kyoin Yosei o Toinaosu Seido, Jissen, Riron” (Re-Questioning a Teacher Training: Systems, Practice and Theory) (Co-author and coeditor) Toyokan Publishing, 2016
◆“‘Amae’ to ‘Jiritsu’ no Kyoikugaku Kea, Dotoku, Kankeisei” (Pedagogy of ‘Autonomy’ and ‘Amae (Dependence): Care, Morals, Relationships’) (Co-author) Seori Shobo, 2015
Others