MODULE IV

Grounds of Moral
Practice In Teaching
 Concept of Morality
• Morality is the differentiation of intentions,
decisions and actions between those that
are distinguished as proper (right) and
those that are improper (wrong).
• Morality can be a body of standards or
principles derived from a code of conduct
from a particular profession, philosophy,
religion or culture. This standards describes
what is right and wrong.
 Concept of Morality
• Morality means the code of conduct or customs of
people, the social glue that defines how individuals
should live together. moreover;
• Morality refers to the set of standards that enable
people to live cooperatively in groups. It’s what
societies determine to be “right” and “acceptable.”

• Sometimes, acting in a moral manner means individuals

must sacrifice their own short-term interests to benefit
society. Individuals who go against these standards may
be considered immoral.
• It may be helpful to differentiate between related terms, such
as immoral, nonmoral, and amoral. Each has a slightly different
meaning:

• Immoral: Describes someone who purposely commits an

offensive act, even though they know the difference between
what is right and wrong
• Nonmoral: Describes situations in which morality is not a
concern
• Amoral: Describes someone who acknowledges the difference
between right and wrong, but who is not concerned with
morality
 Moral education
• Moral education may be defined as helping
students and young people to acquire a set of
beliefs and values regarding what is right and
wrong in their society.
• This set of beliefs guides their intentions,
attitudes and behaviors towards others and
their environment.
• Moral education also helps children develop
the disposition/tendency to act in accordance
with such beliefs and values.
 Moral education
• More fundamentally, it encourages children to
reflect on how they should behave and what
sort of people they should be. For many
people, these questions are linked to religious
belief, but moral education concept treat
religion and morality to be conceptually
distinct.
 Moral education
• Moral education, then, refers to helping children
acquire those virtues or moral habits that will
help them individually live good lives and at the
same time become productive, contributing
members of their communities.
• In this view, moral education should contribute
not only to the students as individuals, but also
to the social cohesion of a community.
 Moral education
• Moral education to students teachers helps
them to acquire those virtues or moral habits
that will enable them to become professional
teachers who adheres to the code of
professional conduct for teachers in Tanzania.
• The code of professional conduct for teachers
in Tanzania is a set of moral behaviors which
teachers are expected and required to
demonstrate in their work.
 MORAL VALUES

• Human beings are social animals. Our tendency is

to co-exist and live with others in a harmonious
way. Stability in our social relations is built around
certain shared principles, belief systems and ways
of life.
• These are known as values and are important for
our growth and development. They ground us and
challenge us as individuals as well as collectives.
By adopting the right values, we can create the
kind of life that is most true to ourselves.
 MORAL VALUES
• Moral values are the behavioral practices,
goals, and habits which are accepted and
validated by the society we’re part of. This set
of values typically becomes embedded in our
behavior through a long process of
observation, education, conditioning, and
social guidelines.
• Usually, these are universal in nature and may
not vary much in different parts of the world.
 Examples of Moral values
• Being honesty – e.g. always tell the truth
• Being courageous
• Truthfulness - Keep your promises
• Being loyal (faithful)
• Treat others as you want to be treated
• Do not judge
• Be dependable
 Examples of Moral values

• Have integrity
• Take responsibility for your actions
• Patience
• Trustworthy
• Have respect for yourself and others
• Be tolerant of differences
• Seeking justice
 Examples of Moral values
• Be forgiving
• Have humility
• Be generous
• Do not cheat
• Do not destroy property
 MORAL VALUES
• No matter which profession, community,
religion, race or region/country you belong to,
the above moral values will be equally
respected and accepted almost everywhere.
• Moral values concern themselves with right
and wrong. They define what is socially
acceptable, good or evil.
 MORAL VALUES IN TEACHING PROFESSION
• Moral values in teaching professions defines
what is professionally acceptable. Teachers moral
values includes (but not limited to) dignity,
Honesty, fairness, responsibility, confidentiality,
Integrity, caring and patience
• Dignity means respect for humanity. Teachers
must respect every person, regardless of gender,
sexual orientation, gender diversity, appearance,
age, religion, social standing, origin, opinions,
abilities and achievements.
 MORAL VALUES
• Honesty or truthfulness is a facet of moral character
that connotes positive attributes such as integrity,
truthfulness, straightforwardness, including
straightforwardness of conduct, along with the
absence of lying, cheating, theft, etc. Honesty also
involves being trustworthy, loyal, and sincere.
• Fairness means the quality of being impartial and
unbiased, ensuring just treatment or behaviour to all
without favouritism or discrimination. Fairness
involves in particular promoting equality and non-
discrimination and avoiding favouritism.
 MORAL VALUES
• Responsibility: a teacher should fully accomplish his
responsibility of educating student. Their duties
include teaching students, assigning homework,
grading tests, and documenting students progress.
A Teacher should be hardworking
• Confidentiality is the principle and practice of
keeping sensitive information private unless the
owner or custodian of the data gives explicit consent
for it to be shared with another party. Teachers are
expected to ensure confidentiality of student matters
e.g. family matters
• Integrity is the practice of being honest and
showing a consistent and uncompromising
adherence to strong moral and ethical
principles and values.
• Integrity is the quality of having strong moral
principles that are followed at all times.
Honesty and trust are central to integrity, as is
consistency.
• A person with integrity demonstrates sound
moral and ethical principles and does the right
thing, no matter who's watching.
• Integrity is the foundation on which teachers
build relationships and trust, and it is one of
the fundamental values that employers seek
in the teachers that they hire.
• To have integrity means that a person is self-
aware, accountable, responsible, and truthful
and that their actions are internally consistent.
• Patience - the capacity to accept or tolerate
delay, problems, or suffering without becoming
annoyed or anxious.
• Patience is a moral virtue because it contributes
to happiness and living well.
• Waiting attentively involves discerning when it's
our turn to act. Waiting without complaint
helps us not hate the waiting, and it helps us do
our job well when it's our turn
• Patience may involve perseverance in the face
of delay; tolerance of provocation without
responding in disrespect/anger; or
forbearance when under strain, especially
when faced with longer-term difficulties, or
being able to wait for a long amount of time
without getting irritated or bored.
• Caring & Being helpful
Caring means displaying kindness and concern
for others.
Teachers are required to care students
academically.
Provide help and assistance to students
academically, psychologically and financially.
Is the teaching of morality viable?
• In this context, viable means able to be done,
workable, practical, feasible, likely to succeed.
• The teaching of morality is viable because
morality (moral values) can be taught through
following means;
Is the teaching of morality viable?
i. Teaching of morality starts at home. Parents
and other members of community do teach
morality in order to ensure stable society.
For teaching morality to take place, it requires
appropriate nurturing. Initiating a child into the
realm of moral values is considered important
by the entire society.
Is the teaching of morality viable?
ii. Educational institutions also provides moral
education. Morality is conveyed in schools,
colleges, and universities. Students are
taught moral values in each level of
education i.e. primary education, secondary
education and college/university education.
• Morever, moral values of each of five major
professions (Teaching, law, medicine,
engineering and medicine) are also conveyed
to students.
• Students in these professions are imparted
with specific moral values for their profession
(code of conduct).
• For instance moral/ethical values of medicine
profession involves ensuring Privacy and
Confidentiality of patients medical Records.
Is the teaching of morality viable?
iii. Morality is also taught in the society
through religious institutions. These
institutions play a crucial role in influencing
people’s characters. For example, some people
adheres to moral values such as honesty
because of the religious teachings. The religious
teachings contribute to their good behavior.
 Importance of Moral Education

• The overarching question is why teaching

morality? Is it important?
 Importance of Moral Education

• Idea to this question is no human being is

born with moral values; and since morality is a
human quality which is associated with human
being as a social being, hence every individual
needs to be taught morality.
• Jean - Jacque Rousseau (1712 – 1778) who
was a French scholar states that children are
born innocent and clean but are polluted by
society.
 Importance of Moral Education

• Rousseau contended that children were

inherently innocent with no immoral habits.
He believed that humans were born pure until
one's interactions with the environment
caused negative effects on one's
development.

• What does it imply?

• It is essential to impart moral values to
students through moral education in order to
instill and inculcate positive moral values to
the society.
• Teach children what is right and wrong
 Importance of Moral Education

Moral education is important because it helps

students/children/professionals with the
following:-
 Importance of moral education
i) It Helps In Building Strong Character
Being aware of values from an early age helps in
developing the child’s character and forming the
very core of their being. A strong character
development happens because of the virtues
and values that children learn during their
childhood, which remains as a sound foundation
for their moral beliefs in the future.
 Importance of moral education
• These moral values that children imbibe become
their strengths, which they can rely on to decide
their path in life. Therefore, the learning years
are the time when special care needs to be
taken to instill these core values, which further
get polished at school and later on in life.
• A strong character incorporates integrity,
faithfulness, hardworking, patience, fairness etc
 Importance of moral education
ii) It Helps In Distinguishing Right
From Wrong
• Moral values serve as a guide in differentiating
between right and wrong from the beginning.
By teaching your children these virtues, you
help them form a firm basis of right and
wrong, so they can conclude scenarios as
morally right or not. This will help them in
making the right decisions in their lives.
• While we see almost every day that students
at times can contribute to undesirable
behavior like bullying or cheating in exams,
they usually do not understand the concept of
right and wrong.
• According to research, children who commit
petty thievery or pilfer were missing a parent
or did not have any adult guidance to teach
them proper values.
 Importance of moral education
• Therefore it is important to correct children when
they do something wrong because they are not
really understanding what they are doing unless
they are taught the difference between right and
wrong.
• If a child is not corrected for their small mistakes,
they tend to understand that it is perfectly fine to
continue doing it again. While these small mistakes
can later become a factor that will lead to poor
personality development in children.
 Importance of Moral Education

iii) Boost Self-Confidence And Positivity

• When children do something good, they tend to feel
good about themselves, which further motivates
them, while also giving them an ample amount of
self-confidence.
• This self-affirmation of being able to give back or
help others, in turn, helps in boosting their self-
confidence along with helping them develop positive
feelings and positive relationships in their lives.
 Importance of Moral Education

iv) Shapes Attitudes, Beliefs And Determines Their Adult

Behavior
• Today’s students are the ones that will become
tomorrow’s doctors, business people, engineers,
scientists, politicians, police, etc., and hold the most
important positions that will either uplift or let down
societies, communities, countries, and the world at large.
• Moral values should be properly imparted right from a
young age because the virtues you teach your children
today will determine how they behave as adults.
 Importance of Moral Education

v) It helps to eliminate/reduce immoral

behaviors such dishonesty, jealousy, crimes,
child abuse, disregarding women, stealing, lying,
murdering etc from one’s life and society at
large.
 Importance of Moral Education

vi) Serves As A Support In Tough Situations

• Moral values give children perspective, make
them strong, and transpire firm beliefs in
them, which makes them work hard and have
courage when they are facing challenges in
life.
• It is almost every day that we hear about the
pressing concerns youth face today, such as
anxiety, stress, depression, and so forth.
 Importance of Moral Education

• While these challenging situations can throw

some people down with struggle, teaching
children to distinguish between right and
wrong, good or bad, helps them make decisions
quicker, better, and in a sensitive manner.
• Along with this, moral values give them a
strong sense of self and strength in character,
which will support them mentally to overcome
any difficult situation with determination.
 Importance of Moral Education

vii) Helps Them In Their Relationships With

Others
• Teaching values such as sharing, compassion,
cooperation, acceptance, equality, generosity,
and justice are extremely important for
children to make everyday decisions in an
unprejudiced and empathetic manner.
•
• From something as simple as showing courage
to complain about a bully at school to showing
perseverance in achieving goals at work will all
help the entire society.
• Apart from these, they understand how to
form and maintain relationships and live by
setting high standards of social living, which
will, in turn, be a positive influence on others.
The moral character and nature
of teaching: Is teaching a moral
undertaking, Is it a moral
enterprise?
Is teaching a moral undertaking?
• In scholarly view teaching has a long
history and honorable tradition of moral
behaviors.
• Teachers’ conducts and the teaching
profession have been considered as a moral
mission. Therefore teaching or education is
a moral activity and thus a moral
undertaking.
Is teaching a moral undertaking?
• There is a general agreement among
scholars that teaching itself involves moral
action whereby Teachers are moral agents,
and education as a whole, and thus
classroom interaction in particular, is
fundamentally and inevitably moral in
nature (Bullough, 2011).
 Is teaching a moral undertaking?
• Teaching is a moral endeavor. This is due to
character dispositions of teachers and teaching
practices that are right, good, caring and virtuous.
Also relevant, but not often thought of in this
context, are the many moral messages teachers
convey to establish the learning environment,
standards of conduct and behaviour, and
classroom routines, and to further students’ moral
growth and development (Rosenberg, 2015)
• The following factors justifies that teaching is a
moral undertaking (or a moral enterprise).
 Is teaching a moral undertaking?
1) Moral values are an integral part of teaching
profession. This is manifested in the way the
teacher interacts with their students. Such moral
values include dignity, Honesty, fairness e.g. in the
marking students’ works) , responsibility,
confidentiality, Punctuality, Neatness and
Excellence
 Is teaching a moral undertaking?
• Teachers are expected to demonstrate such
values everywhere, not in the work places
alone. Since teaching is an ethical enterprise, then
teachers need to treat students fairly and
impartially. The virtue of fairness is grounded in the
ethical principles of social justice.
• Teaching is a moral endeavour due to character
dispositions of teachers and teaching practices that
are right, good, caring and virtuous given above.
 Is teaching a moral undertaking?
2) Teachers are expected to create a mutually
caring and respectful relationship among all
students (creating students community)

• Teaching is a moral undertaking because

teachers a expected to create mutually caring
and respectful relationship among all students
(creating students community)
• Provide opportunities for students to interact
and get to know each other. Regularly and in
random ways change partners, groupings and
seating arrangements.

• Maintain an expectation that everyone can and

will collaborate with, support, and seek support
from everyone else. Highlight each student’s
contributions. Get involved when social
difficulties arise.
 Is teaching a moral undertaking?

3) Fostering mutually caring relationships with

students
• This refers to teacher-student relationships.
• Personally connect with every student. Initiate
regular conversations and interactions on a
variety of topics beyond academics. Be
approachable and accessible so students
might do the same.
• Learn about their interests, hobbies, talents,
families, and favourite shows and foods. Share
yours with them. Validate each student’s
significance to your own school experience.
• Avoid creating enmity/hostility with students
 Is teaching a moral undertaking?
4) Nurturing students' growth and development
• Teachers are expected to nurture students and
help them grow and develop academically,
morally, psychologically, physically and
economically.
• Teachers are expected to guide and motivate
students and enable them to achieve their full
potential.
• Can you recast how your secondary school
teachers nurtured you?
 Is teaching a moral undertaking?
5) Teaching moral education
• This refers to pre-planned lessons as well as
spontaneous messages, on moral values, character
dispositions and virtues. 
• Teachers delivers lessons to help students develop an
understanding of moral principles and articulate
moral ideals.
• They impart moral education to students which
positively influences students conduct, behaviors,
experiences, and assumptions. Moral education
results to students moral growth and development.
 Is teaching a moral undertaking?
6) Teachers apply and incorporate moral values
in their professional responsibilities.
Teachers are expected to;-
• Ensure that assessment is underpinned by
fairness, care and trustworthiness;
• Discipline by kindness, patience and empathy;
 Is teaching a moral undertaking?
• curriculum delivery by diligence, dependability
and integrity;
• and classroom teaching and interactions by
respect, helpfulness and inclusiveness.
As a teacher, make these and other moral values
visible to students.
 Is teaching a moral undertaking?
7) Inclusive nature of teaching profession
• Inclusive education is education that includes
everyone, both non-disabled and disabled
students (including those with “special
educational needs”) learning together in
mainstream schools, colleges and universities.
• Teachers are not expected to discriminate any
student, but to treat them equally. This is a
moral obligation of all teachers
 Roles of Teachers in Developing Morality of
Students

(i) Moral Model or Exemplar

• Teachers play important role as moral model or exemplar

to the students (McMurchy, 2014). Teachers are the
second important person in the children’s life after their
parents as they spend more time with their teachers in
school comparing with their working parents.
• The children are most likely idolising their teachers who
have some attractive characteristics like caring, optimistic,
passionate and so on. The children would imitate the
behaviors and actions of their teachers.
• Therefore, teachers should first have moral
personality and make the moral values into practice
in his or her life so that they can act as moral
exemplar to their students.
• They should also demonstrate their moral virtues
such as respect and responsibility both in and out of
the school so that the students would learn from
them in their daily life too.
• They should show their respect to the students’
rights regardless of their background and model
responsibility by fulfilling their duties as a teacher
 (ii) Moral Mentor
• Teachers play an important role as moral mentors
who not only convey subject matter knowledge
like language, mathematics and science, but also
concern on moral development of their students.
Students may seek for their advice in moral
reasoning process and decision making process.
• Teachers as moral mentors are expected to
provide moral instruction and guidance to their
students.
(iii) Creator of Caring Environment
• Teachers should build positive relationship with
the students. The quality of teacher-student
relationship can influence students’ academic
and social outcomes.
• The teachers should get closer to and understand
their students deeply so that they will be able to
help them to learn and develop their morality. It
is important for teachers to create a caring
environment in the classroom or school.
• Caring for students affects their learning.
Teachers who care for their students are
always sensitive and considerate of their
feeling. Thus, they have to be a good
observant in the classroom. They should
always observe students’ behavior and affirm
their conduct by giving praises. The praises act
as motivation and encouragement for
students to maintain their moral behavior.
• Students who are being cared from teachers
will learn to care others in their lives.
Therefore, a caring environment in school can
encourage social and emotional bonding of
students which are essential for formation of
students’ moral character.
(iv) Inculcating Moral Value
• Moral value is the basis of what people believe about
themselves and others. Moral values are universal
values accepted and associated with the moral values
practiced in a society, nation and globe.
• Teacher is the important person to inculcate those
moral values to students in the school. As students
spend a large amount of time in school, it is
important for teachers to internalize moral values
that the students will be able to apply inside and
outside of the classroom (Taher, 2015).
• Teacher can emphasize moral values such as love,
self-control, trust, respect, responsibility and so on
through their teaching subjects and during the co-
curricular activities.
• Teachers should inculcate the moral values either
overtly or covertly to students using various types of
instructional materials and activities in the classroom.
• For instance, teachers can inculcate moral values by
telling a moral story to their students in language
class.
• They ask questions about the characteristics
of the characters to help students to practice
their moral reasoning skills. Besides, they can
ask students to think about the lesson learnt
from the story and teach them to learn the
positive attitude of the character in the story.
(v) Facilitator of Students’ Moral Development
• Teachers are considered as facilitators in developing
students’ morality. They should provide opportunities
to students to use moral reasoning skills
independently.
• Students should have self-regulation so that they could
monitor their own behavior and actions.
• They should be given chance to train to resolve the
moral dilemmas with skills that they learned. This can
help them to be more capable to apply the skills in real
life situation and choose the appropriate behavior.
• Besides, students should be given roles that
require moral responsibility. Teachers can
assign post to the students and provide them
with practice opportunity to build a sense of
themselves as moral human beings.
(vi) Teachers act as Counselors
• Teachers act as counselor who can listen to students’
problem and offer advice in their moral reasoning
process. Teachers have to be a good listener by
displaying their patience in handling students’ problem.
They should understand students’ mindsets and
feelings.
• They need to be empathetic/compassionate to their
students. They can give suggestions or recommendation
for students to live their life based on moral virtues.
They also can give warnings to students to prevent them
from learning immoral acts from media sources.
• They should give advice to students about
what they should or should not do in any
situation of their lives.
• They should raise the awareness of the
students about the immoral behavior on social
networks since the students in this generation
are exposed to social network and gadget
nowadays (Turan & İşçitürk, 2017).
(vii) Moral Communicator
• Teachers also act as a communication bridge between
students and their parents. The social pattern of the
students is mostly being observed in the school as
school is a small community.
• Teachers understand well students’ behavior and
attitudes that they display in schools.
• Teachers should talk or communicate with the parents
when they find that the students are not behaving well
or when some conflicts occurred so that their parents
can know about their children’s behaviors in the school.
• Teachers should then discuss the problems
and find out the solutions with both students
and parents.