MORAL TEACHING IN SCHOOLS URGED

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32114, 9 October 1969, Page 15

MORAL TEACHING IN SCHOOLS URGED

It was unreasonable to complain of moral illiteracy in young people today, if society did not consider moral issues sufficiently important to be worth including in the school curriculum, said a report received by the annual synod of the Anglican Diocese of Christchurch yesterday.

The report, from the diocesan commission on education for life, said that the fact that children lived in a community where moral standards were conflicting, implicit, or at times apparently non-existent, made it more important than ever that values be given consideration in the school curriculum. The commission, which was set up by the synod last year to discuss further the problems of children and young people facing life’s difficulties and challenges in today's society and the experimental work beginning to be undertaken in both State and private schools, said that social degeneration was being caused by the failure in early life to establish a firm foundation for facing life. Emancipation of the individual through career or workorientated courses in schools was no longer providing an adequate foundation for life, it said.

The home and church had also lost a large measure of their influence in this direction.

“We see this inner problem arising from lack of goals and uncertain priorities in the face of rapid change in both attitudes and ‘progress’,” said the commission.

"We are therefore glad to find various reports and bodies showing interest in this subject and experiments proceeding in some schools to make up this deficiency,” said the report. In an introduction in the report, the commission said that statements were made from time to time drawing attention to the extent of juvenile delinquency, the high rate of venereal diseases among teen-agers and the high rate of illegitimate births. Such statements seemed sometimes to imply that society was in imminent danger of moral collapse, “Though there is no reason to suppose that society is falling apart, there is good reason for concern,” it said. The commission said that there were almost 7800 illegitimate births in New Zealand in 1967 and more than 12,000 persons were involved in offences handled by the Police Department’s juvenile crime prevention section last year.

“These figures serve to illustrate the existence of a vast amount of ignorance, stupidy, muddle and unhappiness, and underline the presence of a considerable amount of unbearable stress in our presentday society. “Experience in counselling suggests that much of this misery and confusion is avoidable.

“Without suggesting that it is a panacea for all social ills, it seems reasonable to suppose that school courses which enabled children to face life positively and prepare for

marriage, child-rearing, work and the proper use of leisure would be of value to all and would perhaps prevent disaster in a proportion of cases.”

The commission said that young people and their problems did not exist in a social vacuum; they must learn something of the society in which they were to play their part.

Coping with other people and the world in general, however, required skills, and to leave the acquisition of these skills until the fifth or sixth or even third or fourth forms was inadequate. “The children who most need the assistance are likely to be those who see no point in staying at school longer than they can help and are looking forward to the time when they can leave and earn some money,” said the commission.

This grave deficiency, was, no doubt met with varying degrees of success in some homes and where association with religious organisation extended into adulthood.

“We believe that our community and national life are drifting,” it said. “Fear of, rather than confidence in the future seems uppermost in the minds of many.” It was essential therefore to begin education for life in the later years of primary school, and to have adequate general and special staff in schools.

The commission said that the church must be fully prepared to speak out on such a subject, which affected the spiritual life of all people. “It must take deliberate steps to develop its sense of responsibility and mission in this field of providing an environment for the development of purposeful, stable generations of children rather than take its generally, in these days more passive role of being available if wanted.

The synod agreed that the commission be asked to sit again and to consider ways and means by which the recommendations might be implemented.