Moral literacy
Moral literacy can be defined as “a set of practical skills and abilities that enables one to identify, articulate, and respond to ethical challenges” (The Rock Ethics Institute, 2016).
In the classroom setting, we see initiatives such as the character development put out by the Ontario Ministry of Education (2008) that aims to make the education system more balanced and holistic with the emphasis on qualities of good citizenship such as empathy and respect for others for an increasingly diverse community. Character development is seen to provide a standard for behaviour against which we hold ourselves accountable (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2008).
In communities here in Canada, we see a mosaic of diverse beings living along side one another, but not interfering with the practices, beliefs or values of said others. This can be attributed to character, or moral, development that highlight traits such as honesty, caring, respect, empathy, cooperation and integrity that facilitates civic engagement in an interdependent, diverse world which starts at young ages in schooling and other informal modes of education.
The attached link is from Nipissing University, a resource for K-6 teachers in Ontario teaching moral literacy within their pedagogical or curricular approaches. I found this chart to be useful when attempting to clarify abstract, invisible concepts such as character development traits to younger grades that may not fully understand the definitions of these key terms yet (Puri, n.d.). However, I feel that moral literacy is something that can be easily embedded in my practice through day to day experiences where opportunities can turn into moral lessons for the entire classrooms to learn from. For example, I remember hearing a story about a student who continued to kill ants for fun while another student was getting very upset. This began an escalating conflict between the two students as the ant-killing student did not see any harm in his behaviour or how it may have affected others. It was not until the teacher brought it to the classes attention that ants are beings like us, and that no matter how small they deserve the right to life, and the upset student came from a culture that did not tolerate this type of mindless killing despite them being ants. As a result, this small conflict became a moral lesson for the class, encouraging students to respect the beliefs and feelings of others even if you may not understand or agree with them.
Therefore, moral literacy is an essential 21st century literacy that should be taught at every given opportunity for students of all ages, to promote civil, respectful engagement of individuals with one another in an increasingly diverse and populated 21st century society.
References:
Ontario Ministry of Education. (2008). Finding common ground: Character development in Ontario schools, K-12. Retrieved from https://lms.brocku.ca/access/content/group/cec7407d-887e-4973-bdc1-d15adcf9a473/Literacy%20Resources/Moral%20Literacy_%20Character%20Ed/FindingCommonGround%20Charcter%20Ed.pdf
Puri, D. (n.d.). Integrating moral literacy activities in the classroom: A resource guide for K-6 educators. Nipissing University. Retrieved from http://csle.nipissingu.ca/Moral%20Literacy%20Activities.pdf
The Rock Ethics Institute. (2016). What is moral literacy? Pennsylvania State University. Retrieved from http://stem-researchethics.org/morallit/node/127