Moral Development In Middle School

Middle school is a very detrimental period in student’s lives. Students have to make tough choices, figure out who they want to be in life, form their own viewpoints about life; they are essentially trying to find themselves. Teachers can either have a positive or negative influence on students. Teachers have to instill in students dedication, standards, good work ethic, a clear sense of right and wrong, responsibility and respect. In this important period in student’s lives, students are going through five different realms of development, physical, cognitive-intellectual, moral, psychological and social-emotional development. These are all important developments for middle school students to become successful in the real world. The first …show more content…
Moral development is harder to see in a classroom; it’s mainly the student’s character. Students, who show compassion towards others, start to see flaws in others but not oneself, develop personal values, and start seeing the grey in situations are all signs of moral development. If you were the teacher you would be able to see moral development in them because you can see how they act in certain situations. I observed a sixth grade history class and one of the girls in the class kept walking around the classroom, she didn’t have a purpose she would sit down for a minute, then walk around, go out in the hallway, sharpen her pencil, she was always on the move. I noticed this, but didn’t really pay that much attention to it. But as I was leaving, I was about to head out the door and you could hear the teacher talking with the student. The teacher said, “That was embarrassing, we had a guest. You know you aren’t supposed to be walking around the classroom and I repeatedly told you to sit down and did you listen to me? No.” The student didn’t really respond to the teacher lecturing her. However, when she came back inside, she had this look on her face like, I am going to do what I want to do, I don’t care what he says. This is a good example of not seeing the flaws in oneself. During the interview, a question that was asked was, “what do you do when you see someone bullying someone else?” Almost every student said tell the teacher, one student even said that she stands up for the person being bullied and always says something. This shows that she cares about others rather than herself. A main part in moral development is students need a trustworthy adult who will serve as a role model. As teachers we need to be there for our students, we need to be the one person that they can count on when they need advice. However, it’s a very fine line in being friends with your students, while also being their teacher. How would you establish