Teachers Instilling Good Morals In Pupils

[george]

Teachers instilling good morals in pupils

It's often said so many of our young people are growing up lacking in moral behaviour. It's a problem countries around the world are facing - among them Malaysia and Thailand - as they try to tackle the challenge.

Two examples: a Malaysian teacher at a secondary school promoted her ideas in the hope of reducing poor student discipline and reviving change for the good in her students.

While in Thailand, a primary school teacher has been developing morality in her pupils for years, using garbage as the main tool.

Jamaliyah bt Shaik Abdullah, who taught at Convent Butterworth Secondary School (CBSS) in Malaysia, launched her "Be Good, Look Good" programme to change undesirable behaviour among students there in 2007.

"Convent culture", a record of the code of conduct at the school, found that more and more students seemed not to care for school regulations and no longer appreciated convent culture because regulations were not implemented with firmness, according to Jamaliyah's research.

The research paper said an initial survey indicated the school faced problems with latecomers, students playing truant from class, untidy student appearance, and weak leadership from prefects and class monitors.

She said banners and flyers were put up all over CBSS to attract the school's attention to the programme, discussions on exemplary student behaviour in line with the convent culture were organised and recorded, and a video about the hisฌtory of CBSS played back to the students. Jamaliyah also used candid videos comparing what the students did and what she wanted them to change.

"Sharing understanding with students is better and more effective than punishing them," she said, more effective than shouting at them or knocking their heads.

Using this ideal as a basis, monitoring and making frequent patrols around the school helped led to successful changes.

They included organised and quiet assemblies, smooth stairway movement from classrooms to special rooms, hair tidiness, a decrease in latecomers and a significant decrease in the number of students loitering outside classrooms.

Her research showed that the number of students late for school fell to 120 cases in February from 333 cases in January, and to only 88 cases in March. Besides, the numฌbers of students loitering along corridors in several areas were similarly down — reduced from more than 20 students in January to less than 10 in May, on average.

Jamaliyah moved to Dato' Onn Secondary School in 2008 and is now doing similar work to reduce misconduct among students at her new school.

Meanwhile, Somchit Soaseechan, a Thai teacher at Anubaan Chiang Mai School has run the "Kha ya boon" campaign for seven years. Pupils at all levels have been encouraged to take part in garbage collecting activities.

She's taught them how to separate garbage before selling it. So far,up to Bt50,000 earned from garbage selling has been spent on students' making merit activities at temples, as well as donated to help construct school buildings and to fund students and 35 monks who were former trainee teachers there.

"Over the past seven years, around 1,500 students participated in this campaign. I'm really happy to see 90 per cent of students decided not to litter around the school as they did before the project started."

"I found there have been sidebenefits as well. Collecting garbage together made students at different levels harmonious and more familiar with each other. Some of their parents were surprised when their children asked permission from them to collect saleable garbage found as they walked home. Some parents told me they were happy their children no longer dropped garbage," said Somchit.

Both teachers presented their projects at the 2nd Thailand - Malaysia Joint Educational Research Conference 2009 held between November 15 and 18 at the Pullman Bangkok King Power.

-- The Nation 2009-11-23

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[phetaroi]

The article really isn't -- in my view -- about instilling "morals". In fact, when I first read the title of the thread I thought oh no! Here we go again.

If you're going to talk about instilling "morals" in the classroom, I have only to point to some of the Muslim schools in countries like Pakistan where the morals which have been instilled are jihadist in nature. The question is, whose morals are going to be instilled?

[elkangorito]

The word "morals" is a nasty word...full of piousness.

As phetaroi said, "Whose morals?"

It sounds like my college...a small bunch of old control freaks getting their last "crack of the whip" in before they die.

The "moral" crimes are really terrible...late for class/school, absenteeism, untidiness, loitering, weak leadership from leaders & littering.

I wonder if anyone has really addressed these "moral" issues?

Why are students late for class?

Why are they absent, untidy, loitering etc etc?

Why do people litter?

To me, it has little to do with discipline, rules or regulations but more to do with self respect...a universal human trait. Respect knows no cultural bounds.

It is also to do with "awareness" of the self & your fellow man. Are these things truly & openly taught (not at a school but at home) in Asia? Or is a "program" being followed without knowing the reasons behind such a program? Who will ultimately benefit the most from having everybody behaving to a preordained set of "morals"?

It's no wonder that students are bucking the system. Self responsibility went out the window the second that they had to follow somebody elses rules & regulations. Mindlessly following a rule or regulation is easy compared to being responsible for oneself.

Somebody really ought to tell some of these "good doers" why the dinosaurs died out.

[Ijustwannateach]

^Agree with many of your points and also think that self-responsibility on the part of the teachers and other adults around- which unfortunately cannot be counted on- is the best moral example that can be given the children.