LETTERS: This semester, I am teaching a course titled Moral Development.
It is an essential course for future Moral Education teachers to understand the different aspects involved in an individual's moral development.
They include cognitive, social and emotional moral developments, and analysis of factors (internal and external) that leads an appropriate moral agent in a multicultural nation like ours.
Cognitive moral development encourages the use of rational thinking and reasoning.
If children are taught to think through their moral dilemmas from an early age, then they would be tactful and sensitive to themselves and those around them before making judgments or any moral decision.
They would know how to resolve moral issues systematically and wisely.
Great cognitive moral development psychologists, such as Jean Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg, strongly felt that when people have skills in developing their moral cognitive development, they would make moral decisions, and keep going up the ladder of rational thinking and reasoning.
Social and moral development theories are also learnt in this Moral Development course. The essence of rational thinking in cognitive development is complemented with psychosocial and social and emotional theories.
Students start to understand themselves better and analyse why they have certain characteristics that are good and not so good.
It is only when teachers can evaluate themselves, that they can help their students later in their lives as Moral Education educators.
However, when teachers do not understand themselves and their students, then they only focus on external factors, such as completing the syllabus, preparing students for examinations and getting them off their minds.
When moral development is distorted, then we can see adults behaving like young children or children learning to lie and cheat because they follow the adults around them (i.e., social learning theory).
It is time to look at education from a developmental perspective, especially by focusing on values in the digital era. Humanising education is a priority and it is the responsibility of every teacher.
Therefore, transformational education based on values should be the priority.
In this regard, I hope the Education Ministry does a complete overhaul rather than changing here and there, but still focus on examinations and grades.
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR DR VISHALACHE BALAKRISHNAN
Director, Centre for Research in International and Comparative Education (CRICE),
Coordinator of SULAM@Service Learning, Universiti Malaya
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times