Introduction
Kinesiology is the science and the study of human movement. Within
the United States, kinesiology encompasses many different sub-disciplines of
human movement such as exercise physiology, biomechanics, sport psychology,
motor behavior, motor learning, sociology, and philosophy, as well as, the
professions linked to kinesiology such as teaching, researching, and training. The
following paper addresses one important issue, the role of moral education,
within the preparation of kinesiology pre-professionals.
Education is only complete when it leads to an individual who
can distinguish between what is right and what is wrong (Center for the 4th and
5th Rs, 2020). Kinesiology majors will often make decisions about what is right
and wrong throughout their professional lives, including but not limited to
their own professional attitudes towards others as well as how they treat
others. A kinesiology student may learn the nature of good and evil, wrong and
right, through role modeling (family, influential adults, teachers, and coaches),
environment (day to day activity with others in the real world) and education,
both informal and formal (Stoll, 2011b). In general, education directed toward
the nature of right and wrong must be direct and intentional for it to be
effective (Garrison, 2010; Lickona, 1991; Reimer et al., 1983). Moral education
is the professional activity that directly and intentionally teaches the moral
values of honesty, responsibility, and respect for others. Moral education as
therefore applied to Kinesiology is important as it teaches diversity,
tolerance, mutual respect, plural values, and ideals of how these values bring
about the good life for the professional in their contact with clients and or
students (Frankena, 1973).
Moral education is also important because the processes of
thinking about right and wrong can challenge kinesiology students to think and
engage in higher order reasoning (Piper et al., 1993; Reimer et al., 1983).
However, to be a moral educator and prepare these students is not easily
attained and many confounding issues work against the actual process. In this
narrative philosophical
paper, we will discuss three specific problems providing theory and following
with a narrative. First, even though over 37 states have some sort of
requirement that character education is a part of the public education
curriculum, apparently no direct teaching of moral values exists in public
elementary, middle, and high schools (Center for the 4th and 5th Rs, 2020),
thus kinesiology students arrive at the university with little educational
background about moral values. Once they arrive, few university classes are
directed toward moral education. Several reasons exist for this lack of moral
education: teachers and university instructors are not content experts in moral
education, consumer-based education drives and affects students’ value of
education, and a fallacy exists that ethics, the content of moral education,
should only be taught at a young age and is not needed for older student
populations. Second, moral pedagogy, the actual teaching process of moral
education, does not exist in most public education curriculum and is very
seldom in university curriculums (Morgan, 2006; Stoll, 2011b). After
discussing the above, we will also examine three specific solutions, the: a)
creation of moral development courses, b) use of writing intensive courses, and
c) development of courses in pedagogy.
MORAL EDUCATION
The current culture of moral education is interesting and at
the same time depressing. Presently over 37 states have some sort of a
provision that moral education, i.e., character education, should be a part of
the general education curriculum in public education.
However, reality does not equate to expectations or definitions by state
departments of education. For example, in public elementary, middle, and high
schools little to no direct teaching of moral values exists (Center for the 4th
and 5th Rs, 2020; Lickona, 1991), though moral education does exist through
other programming, i.e., safe schools (Center for the 4th and 5th Rs, 2020;
National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance [NCEE], 2020).
Moral education is the actual teaching of moral values, e.g., responsibility,
respect, justice, and honesty, however, if taught, these are not taught through
direct curriculum application. This reality directly affects kinesiology
majors who have no formal education with moral education. They arrive at the institution
of higher education with no training and many arrive having experiences that
work against the notion of studying moral education.
We personally know this to be true, not just from research,
but from our own experiential, professional education experiences. One of us,
(AS), was enrolled in a special education graduate class in her doctoral
program. The class was discussing students and their behaviors or simply, their
bad behaviors. AS simply stated that perhaps a teacher should teach moral values
within the class which would be one more way of attending to the poor behavior.
Moral education’s focus is to improve value and purpose of one’s action towards
others. A special education teacher who had been in the public-school system
for quite some time became upset and told AS that it was not her place as a
teacher to teach morality. Moral values should be taught to children by parents
and is not a duty or obligation of teachers.
The peer’s response is typical. Teachers, and even college
instructors, often argue against teaching responsibility, respect, and honesty
since these are moral values and moral values are often confused and mistaken
as religious training (Lickona, 1991). The argument is not a new one. Before the
1960s religious training and moral training were considered the same and often
were a part of general education in America. Public schools began each morning
with a prayer and Christian Biblical tenets were often used to teach the
importance of being honest, trustworthy, and fair. However, by the 1960s, such
education was found to be unconstitutional and was no longer common place (Laats, 2012).
Instead, by the 1970s public education offered values
clarification as a moral curriculum, which was soon adopted by education
professionals and higher education instructors and still exists in many
textbooks on curriculum (Kirschenbaum, 2020; Lickona, 1991; Simon et al.,1995).
Essentially, values clarification is the practice of ferreting out values and
discussing these values (usually social values of hard work, dedication,
intensity, and sacrifice) with students in the classroom, with no notion or
reference to morality. Unfortunately, moral education is often taught through
the social values, but moral values are seldom, if ever, directly discussed (Center for the 4th and 5th Rs, 2020; Lickona, 1991). Thus, unfortunately, even though
expectations exist in 37 states for a moral education curriculum, if such a
curriculum exists, it is not necessarily moral education focused. Our
kinesiology majors, therefore, have little experience with moral education.
All of which is troubling, since research is clear that moral
education is important for our kinesiology students to learn the value of
honesty, responsibility, and respect. In addition, moral education helps
students learn a higher order cognitive reasoning process (Reimer et al., 1983)
where they should learn perspective taking or seeing another’s point of view.
However, other factors also affect the process of moral education.
COMPOUNDING ISSUES
Confusion or misinformation from teachers and even university
instructors about teaching moral education is compounded by how the educational
system has become a consumer-based product (EdChoice, 2020). Somewhere in the
late twentieth century, education became a business, why it became a business
is debated, but education now is a business (Donoghue, 2018).
Unfortunately, when education became a business (Christensen, 2011) students and parents became consumers or customers, and curriculum
and pedagogical expectations became directly affected by the old adage of “customers
know best” (Gorman et al., 1997). Thus, the consumers know best as to what is
taught and how it is taught. Obviously, this sort of perspective is highly
flawed for various reasons, the first most important is teacher and instructor
knowledge and preparation. Teachers and college instructors spend years
studying and earning degrees in their fields. Many of them also learn how to
teach and thus should have knowledge of the learning and teaching experience.
By viewing education as a consumer-based product, the
educational preparation of these instructors and teachers is inherently
devalued since the customer, and not those prepared in curriculum, pedagogy,
and discipline knowledge are the experts. If education is consumer based, then how
do those who do not know, become the experts of what is known (Gill,
1993)? The irony of this metaphysical question about the theory of knowledge is
one that has been addressed since the time of Socrates and his dialogue with
his student (Plato as translated by Jowett, 1892/2020). As a new teacher, AS
came face to face with this sort of consumer-based thinking and pedagogical
irony within the first two weeks of her new university kinesiology teaching
assignment.
AS assigned her students a one and one half-page paper to
reflect on their teaching as applied to professional responsibility. The theory
behind this teaching assignment is directly linked to the thinking, reflecting,
and writing linchpin of developing a moral perspective of responsibility and
duty in a profession (Gazzaniga, 2006; Piper et al., 1993; Tancredi, 2005). However,
AS was surprised at the push back from her students. They were not especially
happy with writing and reflecting, and one student explained, in a lengthy
email, that her writing skills would be much better suited to writing one
single paragraph. When queried about the one paragraph, the student pushed back
again – she saw anything more than one paragraph as just busy work.
Philosophically, education for this student is not about the process of
learning, but a simple product to meet the assignment and earn the grade.
Obviously, the student is not aware of the research in moral
reasoning, neuroscience, and pedagogy that supports the pedagogical style that
AS was implementing in the classroom. Instead, this student believes she knows
best and she should dictate the expectations of the course. Perhaps Garrison (2010)
is correct, the “realism” of education today is the end product of the grade
assigned. The road to that goal simply becomes a check-the-box process.
However, consumerism, business, and misunderstanding the
pedagogical process of moral education are not the only issues confronting and
working against teaching moral education. Moral education as a discipline is
seldom taught in universities, and unfortunately ethics as applied, is also not
generally taught outside the philosophy department. If ethics is taught through
the total university, it may be included as one unit in a professional kinesiology
practice course, e.g., sport management (DeGeorge, 2009), or as a unit in
research ethics as directed through the Institutional Review Board process.
All of which is also ironical since Zeigler (2007)
once said the sole most important study in kinesiology is the study of ethics.
He argued that sport ethics should be a standalone course, and its focus should
also be incorporated in most if not all of the professional preparation
courses. For Zeigler, as well as most sport philosophers, physical education,
and sport morally matters (Kretchmar, 2005; Morgan, 2006) and the study of
morality and ethics should be studied from a personal as well as professional
perspective. The question of: “Who are we?” is directly linked to our
professional behaviors. Are we responsible? Are we honest? Are we fair in our
dealings with others? Stoll has argued in numerous publications that morality
is linked to professional growth as well as professional failure – thus
morality and ethics should be robustly studied throughout the professional
curriculum (Stoll, 2011a, 2011b, 2012, 2020).
Unfortunately, ethics and morality, if taught, is taught by
an instructor of record who seldom has an advanced degree in moral education or
ethics. Strangely, the overarching perspective and mistaken current practice
of teaching professional ethics lies in the notion that most good people, and
of course kinesiology instructors are good people, know what is ethical, and
know how ethics functions in leadership. The common justification for this
false belief is that we learn ethics at a young age from our good parents and
that good parental education will suffice for life. The family then becomes
the moral educator and this family experience lays a powerful base for the
notion of right. All of which may be true, or not. Thus, the logic becomes
everyone knows what is right and what is wrong from these early family
experiences (Stoll, 2011a, 2011b, 2012). However, such is not the case for two
reasons. Gazzaniga (2006) notes that the second largest moral development period
of a person’s life happens between the ages of 16-22. Therefore, moral
education must not be limited to the early years of family experience, but in
reality, should continue through adulthood and should be actively taught to
college aged students (Center for the 4th and 5th Rs, 2020; Lickona, 1991;
Piper et al., 1993; Stoll & Beller, 1993). To be clear here, ethics is the
“standard of morality that a profession should follow” (Lumpkin et al., 2003) meaning
there is more to ethics than what parents teach children
And formal education in ethics as a professional standard should be taught in
the university professional curriculum.
Another fallacy here is the selection of the instructor to
teach ethics, which is often based on the notion that being a good person is
the same as being a good moral educator. This same fallacious reasoning can
also be applied to the failed notion that a moral standard is not necessary to
be a good leader, or even a good manager. The process of leadership is seldom
ethically considered, rather the end result is valued, i.e., productivity and
objective results. In reviewing texts on leadership, seldom is it noted that a
good leader should have a clear understanding of moral duty and a clearly
defined philosophy of moral leadership.
However, there are exceptions. Robert Greenleaf’s (2002)
philosophy of being a servant leader argues that a leader should be a servant
first – a moral servant. Servant leadership is a bottom-up approach to
leadership rather than a top-down approach. However, being a servant leader –
or a moral leader – does not come naturally just because one is a good person.
At the same time, being skilled as a moral educator does not come naturally,
one must study the theory and pedagogy to inspire students to be ethical. A
moral educator can do good or harm depending on how leadership is taught – and
that is linked to a morally defined curriculum and a pedagogy that supports the
moral curriculum that is taught.
AS came face to face with the dilemma of matching pedagogy to
curriculum. One of AS’s teaching assistants came to her within the first week
of school and asked if the requirements could be changed to the previous
instructor’s class requirements. The TA argued that the present class was a
continuation of the previous semester and the pedagogy and curriculum should be
the same. AS explained to the TA there was a purpose to reflection (a page and
one half) and that research in neuroscience, moral education, and pedagogy all
discuss the importance of reading, writing, and reflection (Gazzaniga, 2006;
Gibbs, 2014; Gill, 1993; Hoffman, 2000; Joyce, 2006; Kohlberg, 1981; Lickona,
1991; Reimer et al., 1983; Tancredi, 2005). For cognitive growth about moral
responsibility, a student must engage in reading, writing, and reflection.
Additionally, the former class was taught through a sport psychology lens. For
the record, moral education is different from psychology because the field of
psychology generally studies “what is”, whereas moral education and ethics
studies “what should be”. Even though both courses study sport, the different
pedagogical directions fundamentally ask different questions and thus examine
different concepts.
SOLUTIONS
Many different, possible solutions exist to the problems that
are addressed within this paper. However, we, as the authors, will focus only on
three possible solutions.
1. Courses in
moral development should be required for all majors in our field. If sport
ethics is the single most important subject to be taught – we need to teach it.
Courses in moral reasoning and development are needed for the
growth of the moral brain.
Neuroscientists such as Churchland (2011), Gazzaniga (2006),
Joyce (2006), and Tancredi (2005) have argued that we are hardwired for
discussions about morality and our own moral growth. In order for this growth
to occur, content courses must be directed toward moral reasoning, in which the
teacher challenges the student through specific methodology to think at a
higher level of reasoning (Kohlberg, 1981). A moral educator needs to read the
literature in moral development, neuroscience, and pedagogy to understand how
the brain develops and grows, as well as, study the moral pedagogy for such to
occur. The ramifications of moral education in kinesiology are limitless – the
very meaning of being human and being in sport is fraught with important
questions. We argue that moral education courses should focus on the difficult
questions of our profession, i.e., Why do we play? What is the good of
competition? Who are we as we compete? What is the meaning of play?
2. Moral
Pedagogy: Writing intensive courses are needed.
Moral development, neuroscience, and pedagogy literature
discuss in depth the importance of reading, writing, and reflection for the
moral brain to grow (Churchland,
2011; Fox & DeMarco, 2001; Gazzaniga, 2005; Joyce, 2006; Reimer et al.,1983;
Tancredi, 2005). Obviously, courses must have all three elements. Additionally,
Reimer, Paolitto, and Hersh (1983), discuss three different levels or orders of
reasoning. First order reasoning is simply asking the state of the issue at
hand. Second order is asking the reasoning behind the decision that was made.
Third order challenges the student to think beyond one’s own position and apply
the reasoning to action towards others. (Reimer et al.,1983). In writing
intensive courses, the goal should be to achieve third order reasoning so that
the students have to consider the whole situation, others, and self, and the
moral decision as it affects others.
In addition, writing courses should challenge students to
think beyond themselves. Writing allows them to explore this notion and lets
them avoid groupthink, or blindly following the group norm (Baumeister
& Bushman, 2011). Every kinesiology student needs to challenge personal
beliefs to be successful in their own personal and professional life. We argue
that only through personal reflection can a student examine the essential
nature of why we play and why we compete.
3. Courses in
pedagogy are needed.
A moral education curriculum should encompass a pedagogical
style that involves critiquing and fleshing out the important professional
values of our profession: respect, justice, and honesty. However, to do so is
one of the biggest dilemmas as teachers and instructors
are not educated in the area. Shaw
in her dissertation discusses the pedagogical styles that one should engage for
a moral curriculum to exist. Shaw (2020) states, that
“…a specific pedagogical style
emerges from the moral reasoning literature. One must be willing to be
interactive with their students and guide their students through discussion.
Furthermore, one must ask the right questions to engage students in
reflection”.
Furthermore, in Can ethics be taught (1993), Piper,
Gentile, and Parks discuss how they were hired by the Harvard Business School
to use a specific pedadogy to teach ethics. After much push back by faculty,
and more angst, the specific pedagogy based in justice, honesty, and respect
challenged the students to articulate what they believe and what they would do
in different business, ethical situations. Thus, Piper et al. (1993), argue
that a student can learn ethics and be a better ethical thinker with a specific
moral education curriculum. In kinesiology, what are the professional
responsibilities of each student? What are the important social justice issues
that impinge on the profession? What are the issues of honesty in the
profession? What is our duty as professionals in relation to beneficience?
CONCLUSION
Moral educators often face problems and dilemmas, but we do what
we do because we love the field. More importantly moral development educators
aspire to challenge student attitudes, beliefs, and ethical thinking to make
the world, hopefully, a better place. Solutions incorporating moral education
into professional education and practice is important not only to the
educational system but for a civilized society. We share here three concerns
that we have studied for some time and which one of us met directly in her
first year of university teaching. We also offer some basic solutions to the
concerns that we addressed. Our paper is a philosophical narrative that
addresses a basic issue: moral education preparation for pre-professional
kinesiology majors in college and university education.
Acknowledgements
N/A
Funding
N/A
References
Baumeister, R. F., & Bushman, B. J. (2011). Social
psychology and human nature. Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Bres, H. (2018). Narrative and meaning in life. Journal of
Moral Philosophy, 15(5), 545-571. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/17455243-20170008.
Center for the 4th and 5th Rs. (2020). Retrieved from Center
for the 4th and 5th Rs: http://www2.cortland.edu/centers/character/
Character.org. (2020). Retrieved from Character.org:
https://www.character.org
Christensen, C. M. (2011). The innovative university: Changing
the DNA of higher education from the inside out. Jossy-Bass A Wiley Imprint.
Churchland, P. S. (2011). What neuroscience tells us about
morality: Braintrust. Princeton University Press.
DeGeorge, R. (2009). Business ethics (Vol. 7th). Pearson.
Donoghue, F. (2018). The last professors: The corporate
university and the fate of the humanities. Fordham University.
EdChoice. (2020). Friday freakout: Is education a consumer
good? Retrieved from Engage by EdChoice: https://www.edchoice.org/engage/friday-freakout-is-education-a-consumer-good/#:~:text=Education%20is%20perceived%20as%20a,most%20out%20of%20the%20system
Frankena, W. (1973). Ethics. Prentice Hall.
Garrison, J. (2010). Dewey and eros: Wisdom and desire in the
art of teaching. Information Age Publishing Inc.
Gazzaniga, M. S. (2006). The ethical brain: The science of our
moral dilemmas. Harper Perennial.
Gibbs, J. C. (2014). Moral development and reality. Oxford
University Press.
Gill, J. H. (1993). Learning to learn: Toward a philosophy of
education. Humanities Press International Inc.
Gorman, G., Hanlon, D., & King, W. (1997). Some research
perspectives on entrepreneurship education, enterprise education and education
for small business management: A ten-year literature review. International
Small Business Journal, 15(3), 56-77. DOI: 10.1177/026624697153004.
Greenleaf, R. K. (2002). Servant leadership: A journey into
the nature of legitimate power and greatness. Paulist Press.
Hoffman, M. L. (2000). Empathy and moral development:
Implications for caring and justice. Cambridge University.
Joyce, R. (2006). The evolution of morality. MIT Press.
Kirschenbaum, H. (2020). Coming of age in the baby boom: A
memoir of personal development, social action, education reform, and Adirondack
preservation. Values Associates.
Kohlberg, L. (1981). The philosophy of moral development:
Moral stages and the idea of justice. Harper and Row.
Kretchmar, R. S. (2005). Practical philosophy of sport (2nd
ed.). Human Kinetics.
Laats, A. (2012). Our schools, our country: American
evangelicals, public schools, and the Supreme Court decisions of 1962 and 1963.
Journal of Religious History, 36(3), 319-334. DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9809.2012.01170.x.
Lickona, T. (1991). Educating for character: How our schools
can teach respect and responsibility. Bantam Books.
Lumpkin, A., Stoll, S. K., & Beller, J. M. (2003). Sport
ethics: Application for fair play (third ed.). McGraw-Hill.
Lumpkin, A., Stoll, S., & Beller, J. (2011). Practical sport
ethics. McFarland Press.
Morgan, W. J. (2006). Why sports morally matter? Routledge.
National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional
Assistance. (2020). Technical methods report: Survey of outcomes measurement in
research on character education programs. Retrieved from IES NCEE:
https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/2009006/
Piper, T. R., Gentile, M. C., & Parks, S. D. (1993). Can
ethics be taught? Perspectives, challenges, and approaches at Harvard Business
School. Harvard Business School.
Plato. (1892/2020). Crito. (B. Jowett, Trans.) Independently
published.
Reimer, J., Paolitto, D. P., & Hersh, R. H. (1983).
Promoting moral growth: From Piaget to Kohlberg. Waveland Press.
Riessman, C. K. (1993). Narrative analysis (Vol. 30). Sage
Publishing.
Shaw, A. H. (2020). An intervention for pre-service
professionals to perspective take towards individuals with physical
disabilities (Publication No. 28022464) [Doctoral dissertation, University of
Idaho]. Proquest Dissertation and Theses Global.
Simon, S. B., Howe, L. W., & Kirschenbaum, H. (1995).
Values clarification: A practical, action-directed workbook. Warner Books, Inc.
Stoll, S. K. (2011a). Athletics: The good it should do.
Journal of College and Character, 12(4), DOI: https://doi.org/10.2202/1940-1639.1839.
Stoll, S. K. (2011b). The problem of ethics and athletics: An
illegitimate stepsister. Journal of College and Character, 12(3), DOI: https://doi.org/10.2202/1940-1639.1817.
Stoll, S. K. (2012). The effects of athletics' competition on
character development in college student athletes. Journal of College and
Character, 13(4), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/jcc-2012-1939.
Stoll, S. K. (2020). What would Massengale recommend? Words of
wisdom for a professional future. Journal of Kinesiology and Wellness, 9(1) 50-57.
Stoll, S. K., & Beller, J. M. (1993, March). The effect of
a longitudinal teaching methodology and classroom environment on both cognitive
and behavioral moral development. 1993 American Alliance for Health, Physical
Education, Recreation, & Dance Annual Convention. Washington D.C.
Tancredi, L. (2005). Hardwired behavior: What neuroscience
reveals about morality. Cambridge University Press.
Zeigler, E. F. (2007). Applied ethics for sport and physical
activity professionals. Trafford Publishing.
*Address correspondence to:
Aubrey Shaw, Ph.D.
Idaho State University
Department of Human
Performance and Sport Studies
Pocatello, ID
Email: aubreyshaw2@isu.edu
Journal of Kinesiology and Wellness ©
2021 by Western Society for Kinesiology and Wellness is licensed
under CC
BY-NC-ND 4.0