Raju and Jayashree

Reference: My second last blog `Situation 1’.

When I was doing B.Ed. one day our teacher suddenly presented this situation to us and asked our opinions on it. As we were 100 students, nearly 40-50 students gave their opinions. Few of us asked the teacher her own opinion. And other students remained silent.

The situation given here is called dilemma situation. It is to be given in the classroom and students are asked to give opinion. When students respond to this situation it gradually helps them to increase their power of decision making and moral development as this question and the answers on it by other people stir their mind.

Sometimes students change their opinion hearing colleague’s opinion. It is good in the sense that the teacher could take the student to desired moral development. But teacher must not give her own opinion as a senior figure her right/wrong opinion could affect the students.

On our each opinion teacher asked us some questions but never told her own opinion. Later she told us to repeat the same procedure in regular classrooms when we’ll become the teacher.
My experience of Std. 8th student is that every child has his own ideas/explanation about the situation. They do not talk philosophy but they have certain action plan. They never say let ‘Jayashree’ do it but they say that I’ll do this and that. Lastly I’ll say they have special way of thinking, unusual logic and a capacity to think with totally diverse angle.

Such situations help them for moral development in adolescent which helps them in later years. It also helps them to think about a question with various angles and to respect other’s opinion.

Thanks and warm regards,
Mrudula.

The moral development technique most often used is to present a hypothetical or factual value dilemma story which is then discussed in small groups. Students are presented with alternative viewpoints within these discussions which are in hypothesized to lead to higher, more developed moral thinking. There are three critical variables that make a dilemma appropriate:
The story must present "a real conflict for the central character", include "a number of moral issues for consideration", and "generate differences of opinion among students about the appropriate response to the situation."

A leader who can help to focus the discussion on moral reasoning.

A classroom climate that encourages students to express their moral reasoning freely.

The links :
http://www.vtaide.com/blessing/Kohlberg.htm
http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/affsys/values.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kohlberg's_stages_of_moral_development

Original post : Raju and Jayashree