"The personal values that drive their attitudes towards ethical issues may be more resistant to change."
Throughout the course, I've asked myself, "what is the purpose of teaching social studies?" And I still remain positive that it's to produce civic minded, active, worldly citizens. By extension of this, what would be the purpose of teaching ethics? I don't think we could come to a unified decision on this. By using extreme examples such as sweat shops and organ donations, it seems we don't require students to think more personally about value systems and ethics, and to use less extreme examples would probably cause an uproar. For instance, what if we started by looking at factory workers, or the access of healthcare, in America? Just thinking aloud.
I'm not entirely surprised by the outcome of the study done in the article, and it's clear the point of the curriculum/article was for students to change their thinking on ethical issues, or at least consider other points of view. So what would make this more successful, for students to consider thinking beyond their immediate value systems?
While school is an important tool for socialization, it seems efforts to teach students about ethics would be best combined within topic areas such as history, politics, economics, etc., to help remove their sense of self from the equation. Meaning that maybe they'd be better challenged thinking about the ethics of presidential decisions, etc., rather than their own. And using sweat shops as the illustration of the divergence of rational self interest and greed seems, albeit relevant, a too severe example for students to relate too. It feels inauthentic.
I'm not sure where I stand on teaching ethics, because I think it can be kind of a slippery slope. Who am I to tell students what is and isn't ethical? A great example of this is the subprime mortgage crisis referenced in the beginning of the reading... who really is to blame, is there an ethical concensus on it?
[editors note: I have opinions on ethics and ethical decisions, and what should be taught to students in terms of what constitutes ethical behavior. I just think it would come off as political]
