How to Teach Moral Values
Activities in Schools: Five Useful Things for The Classrooms
How to Teach Moral
Values Activities in Teaching Moral Values in Schools
I mentioned
that it was just as important for students to learn moral values in school as
it was for them to learn the three Rs. The moral values referred to in that hub
included unconditional love and kindness, honesty, hard work, respect
for others, co-operation, compassion, and forgiveness. In this hub I
will go one step further and suggest five useful classroom activities as ways
of imparting moral values to students.
Useful Moral Values Activities for The Classroom
For the past
four years I have been teaching EFL students in Thailand. While helping
students develop their four basic skills of listening, speaking, reading, and
writing, I have created lessons which not only address needed language skills
but which also impart moral values. Basically, I have employed five different
classroom activities to reach my goal. They are as follow:
1. Telling
and Reading Stories:
All children,
especially younger kids, enjoy reading folktales, fairy tales, and stories
where animals are the main characters. This is shown by the great success of
Mickey Mouse and other Disney characters. One of the best sources of stories
about moral values can be found in Aesop's Fables. These short
stories which mostly involve animal characters are simple in expression, and
they convey the truth of human life. Three fables which immediately come to
mind are: Androcles and the Lion; Mercury and the Woodman; and The
Wind and the Sun. In the fableAndrocles and the Lion, students
will learn that gratitude and compassion are the signs of a noble soul. The
moral lesson from The Wind and the Sun is that kindness has
more of an effect on people than severity. The fable Mercury and the
Woodman will teach students that honesty is the best quality.
2. Learning
and Singing Songs:
Most children
love learning and singing songs. Adolescents and adults also like songs and
singing, especially if they can identify with the music. One of the most
successful songs I have used to impart the moral value of love is an old folk
song originally sung by Peter, Paul, and Mary in the 60s titled "If
I Had a Hammer."Some of the lyrics of the song go as follow:
"If I
had a hammer, I'd hammer in the morning
I'd hammer in
the evening all over this land
I'd hammer
out danger, I'd hammer out warning
I'd hammer
out love between my brother and sister all over this land."
By examining
the lyrics, we see that in addition to practicing the second conditional, "If
I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the morning," the students are
observing and singing the importance of love in the world. In addition to
singing the song, I have the students make believe they have a hammer and bell,
and I have them demonstrate the actions of hammering and ringing. Other songs
about love that could be used for older students are: "What the
World Needs Now is Love." by Jackie DeShannon and "Get
Together" by the Youngbloods, a popular song from the
turbulent 1960s.
3.
Role-playing a Story:
The acting
out of folktales and fairy tales have always been popular listening and
speaking activities which I have used in the classroom. Most children like
dressing up and acting out the roles of different characters. Although I haven't
used it yet in the classroom, an old English folktale, Little Red
Hen, appears to be an excellent story for teaching the value of
hard work. This short story involves five characters including a red hen, pig,
cat, dog, and a turkey. Different students can play the characters, and the
dialog to be memorized is limited. The story essentially demonstrates the
industriousness of the red hen in planting wheat, harvesting it, and then
taking it to the mill to make flour while the other animals sit by idly, but
expect to eat bread at the end of the story. Some of my older students have
acted out the fairy tales Snow White and Rapunzel which
show the moral values of love and compassion.
4. Playing Games:
Playing
educational games in the classroom is a great way instilling the moral value of
co-operation. I have done this by dividing the class into teams of 4-5
students. Teams will compete against each other to see, for example. which one
can write the most adjectives or adverbs on the board in five minutes. Another
game which I have recently learned and used is called "Stop the Bus."
In this game, after the students divide themselves into teams of 4-5 members,
the teacher announces that all teams must try to think of names of cities,
countries, sports, food, music, etc. which begin with a certain letter of the
alphabet. The first team which can think of the names, for example, of things
in nine categories beginning with a certain letter assigned by the teacher,
write their candidate answers on the board. The team is awarded points for
correct answers and deducted points for incorrect answers.
5. Teaching
Vocabulary with Associations:
The moral
values of good and bad can be introduced when teaching new vocabulary to
students. One successful way of doing this is by teaching vocabulary with
associations. For example, if I were teaching the meaning of "good"
to beginning EFL students, I would draw pictures or show the students pictures
of a mother holding a baby, Santa Claus, and a doctor. By seeing all of these
pictures associated with "good", the student gets a mental image and
a real feeling for the meaning of the word and the moral value which it
implies. In this case, "good" refers to a loving mother, a generous
Santa Claus, and a helping doctor. Conversely, the meaning of the word
"bad" can be introduced by showing pictures of war, a bully, and a
thief. In all of these pictures we see that either someone is getting hurt
physically or losing property.
