Moral Development

The last question on my students’ final exams was this: what have you learned in psychology class that you can use to control your own behavior? What have you learned that you can use to influence others?

Many students talked about compliance techniques and conformity. Others mentioned being there for others who have psychological disorders, and using developmental psychology to understand their children. But I was amazed at how many students referred way back in the year, to when we talked about Kohlberg’s stages of moral development. Students wrote about identifying their motivations and operating based on that knowledge.

Psychology is an elective. There’s no pressureful standardized test, or “value added” nonsense connected to my evaluation. And so, if I can inspire my students’ intellectual curiosity, enhance their reading and writing skills, and teach them the basics about how their minds and bodies work together, I’m pretty happy. But, as I told a class earlier this year, there’s no point in learning psychology if you don’t use it to make yourself a better person.

And my students have. They wrote about knowing the difference between fear of punishment and accepting the social contract of the law. They mentioned moments when they buckled to their need to belong with their peers, and moments when they stood up for a higher moral imperative. In a world which will constantly pressure them to compromise, they have one more defense in their moral bulwark.

Lately, moral understanding has seemed more important than ever. In end-of-semester grading, it’s key. Today, three of my favorite students sat in my room, heckling me gently. One was there to make up his absence from Monday, without which he couldn’t pass the class. The other two were desperately trying to finish their makeup work for the semester and bring their grades up to a D. All three of them are pure delight—the kind of hilarious-on-the-surface, compassionate-underneath shovavim that make a classroom so fun.

“It was review time after an exam, I didn’t even know it counted,” my senior wheedled.

“If I do this project, it’s big, so can you count it as two assignments?” another asked.

The third said nothing, just eloquently slid the corner of a dollar bill out of his pocket so that it was clearly visible.

“I’m a senior… you could just erase the absence. Why not?” the senior tried again.

For a second, I considered it. He got a high A on his exam, and making him stay just to make up “seat time” per the CMS rule seemed ridiculous. But the other two had to put in the work. And if I let this go, what would be next?

“I can’t,” I looked up at them with a grin that kept coming back despite my best efforts, but deeply serious tones. “It wouldn’t be right, or fair to all the other students who worked so hard, and whom I marked absent also. Those grades mean something. You have to earn them.”

“Oh. It’s, what’s that word,” offered the senior. “That word we talked about the time you really wanted to go home early but didn’t. Integrity.”

“Exactly.” (I really wanted to go home, and I’m not sure that integrity was the answer to why I didn’t—it was probably more of Kohlberg’s preconventional level—but it was a good opportunity to teach him the word ‘integrity’).

They set to work, and by the end of the day, all three had achieved their goal—they’re all passing psychology this year. But more importantly, I pondered over how they help keep me straight. It’s so tempting sometimes to fudge the numbers, especially with students who you know are trying like the dickens, but just can’t make it to school because they’re homeless and the bus doesn’t keep up with all their address changes, or who fall asleep in class after working the night shift so they can help their parents pay the bills, or whose absences are inevitable—if I was having a baby, I’d miss some school, too. And yet, the knowledge that these students would know, that precisely the children I am trying to help, would be the ones learning the wrong lesson, keeps me straight.

Other teachers also help keep me straight. When my colleague called me back to get the copy paper I’d left in the copier drawer (a commodity more precious than gold, as anyone who works in a Title I school knows) and my next-door neighbor discoursed on the ethics of plagiarism and my fellow TFAer reminded me that I really shouldn’t leave early regardless of it being my planning period, they were also reminding me of the standards that I try to live by. And yet, there’s something so much bigger that they do.

The teachers in my school win an incredible moral victory every time they go into a classroom faced with forty kids who don’t care, and manage to walk out still caring themselves. The rockstar Spanish teacher who is always dancing around in the mailroom with weird new ideas to get her level-one speakers engaged no matter how many times she’s cursed out, the world history teacher who dresses up like historic characters despite his freshmen’s apathy, the ESL teacher who firmly yet kindly corrals students into class from their hallway hangouts when it would be much easier to leave the recalcitrant children there for security to pick up, the fellow TFAer who looked at us in serious refusal when he heard someone suggest just giving up on a difficult class… these teachers present a moral victory of the quiet, uncounted kind. They are the reason that I am so proud to teach at my school.

In many other schools, students come in, put their backpacks down, and wait out their state-mandated six hours of education without anything more strenuous than their regulatory morning argument with their parents. In my school, students and teachers together make difficult decisions to never give up, never compromise. Their daily grind shows a moral determination that is astounding. They have climbed to the apex of moral integrity in pursuit of an equal education and the potential to effect good, and camped out there. As I look up at them from my arduous hike, my moral muscles straining and complaining, they remind me of the goal towards which I am climbing.  

Stafford, The Way It Is

There's a thread you follow. It goes among
Things that change. But it doesn't change. 
People wonder about what you are pursuing. 
You have to explain about the thread. 
But it is hard for others to see. 
While you hold it you can't get lost. 
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
Or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing can stop time's unfolding. 
You don't ever let go of the thread.