Teaching values in school.

There is much talk nowadays about the need for public schools to teach moral values. In a society which, for thirty years, has been drifting downriver toward the Niagara of moral anarchy, there is no doubt about it: somebody needs to teach moral values to the young. But can the public schools do it? I doubt it.

Leaving aside a number of other difficulties, let's focus on the vexed question of whose values will be taught. Will the schools teach liberal or conservative values? Values of self-expression or self-control? Values rooted in religion or in secularism? Values of individual autonomy or of community?

Now there happens to be a standard way of trying to meet this difficulty. It is argued (by Bill Bennett, for one) that, no matter what our moral disagreements, all Americans share many important values. We may, for instance, disagree about sexual questions. But so what? Sex, after all, isn't the whole of morality. Everyone agrees that fairness, honesty, courage, and respect for others are good qualities, while unfairness, dishonesty, cowardice, and disrespect are bad. These lists of noncontroversial good and bad qualities, these virtues and vices, can easily be extended. We agree, for instance, on certain values enshrined in the United States Constitution: the rule of law, a republican form of government, democracy, due process, equal protection, freedoms of speech, press, assembly, religion, etc. So let schools teach a broad range of noncontroversial values while maintaining a prudent silence about the narrow range of controversial questions.

Note well, we are told, that this sensible policy does not mean that children will learn nothing about controversial matters. Far from it. Parents, churches, and other nonschool agencies of socialization will be quite free to give instruction on such issues. According, then, to this common-sense division of labor, schools will teach fairness and the Bill of Rights while parents and churches will teach about adolescent sex. The Smith family and their local Southern Baptist church will teach abstinence, while the Jones family and their local Unitarian church will teach safe sex.

As an abstract proposal, this seems reasonable. But as usual, the devil is in the details.

Take teen sex, for instance. Most parents already teach that this is wrong, especially for girls. But to judge from sociological survey data, not to mention sky-high rates of adolescent pregnancy and STDs, such teaching is often not very efficacious. We hear parents say they would like schools to teach "moral values." Translate this into English, and you'll find that what they usually mean is that they want the schools to help them in the difficult job of inculcating sexual restraint in their kids. A values curriculum that keeps silent about adolescent sex will evoke this response from parents: "So what's the point? If you don't plan to say anything about teen sex, why are you doing this at all?"

But if the schools rise to this challenge and decide to tackle the sex question, they're right back in their original quandary. Should they take an 'abstinence" approach or a "safe sex" approach? If the latter, they'll outrage moral and religious conservatives; if the former, they'll outrage moral liberals and secularists.

Or consider fairness. We all believe in fairness as an abstract principle, but what does it mean in practice? What does it mean, for instance, when applied to divorce? Or when applied to social policy questions, like affirmative action, food stamps, Medicare? Or when applied to abortion and euthanasia? If the essence of fairness is respect for the rights of others, then everything depends on what rights others actually have. But this question of rights, like sex, is highly controversial. Some people favor this list of human rights, some that list, others a third.

Maybe the schools win respond to this dilemma by saying: "Our fairness curriculum will teach kids not to cut in line and not to steal one another's pencils; but well take no stand on divisive questions like divorce, social policy, abortion, and euthanasia." But this is tantamount to teaching that fairness applies to small matters only, not to big matters. Once again, what's the point?

Alternatively, the schools might say: "On controversial questions like divorce, affirmative action, etc., we'll teach nothing as to content, but we'll teach a method of approaching the issues." But which method? It is not just moral answers that are controversial; so are methods of answering moral questions. Some people search the Scriptures. Some consult the new Catholic catechism. Some rely on intuition. Some look for help from social scientists (who are in notorious disagreement among themselves). Most simply adopt the prejudices of their social peers. Whichever method schools adopt, they will give offense.

At first glance, teaching values enshrined in the U. S. Constitution seems promising--until we remember that the most divisive issue in the nation today is the question of abortion. The Supreme Court says the Constitution includes a right to abortion. But according to many legal scholars plus a large and intense section of public opinion, it includes nothing of the sort. As they see it, the 1973 Roe decision was a constitutional bonehead play. So what are the schools to say about this?

Perhaps, making the usual move, they will say: "We'll note in passing that the abortion question is highly debatable, but we'll focus our attention on nondebatable aspects of the Constitution, like trial by jury, habeas corpus, etc." To which I can imagine a morally conservative parent replying: "Thanks for nothing. My real worthy is that my daughter Susie, growing up in a society in which the Supreme Court condones abortion, may someday decide to kill her unborn child. I am not worried that she may someday decide to abolish habeas corpus."

Schools can be effective moral teachers when they represent communities that are morally homogeneous. The trouble is, American society is no longer a morally homogeneous community.