Ethical Learning

Who decides what we learn? While we are in school, that decision is made by teachers, school boards, all the way up to The Department of Education. Many trained professionals are invested in deciding what the children of America are going to learn. This is at least true through high school where you don't have much freedom in deciding what you learn. In college it may be a little more free, but you are still required to know certain things. After this it is all up to you to individually control your learning unless you have a job that requires extra training.

General education is the goal of schooling for 12 years of your life. This is the amount of time the country has decided will give you a grasp of a variety of things. What then is ethical to teach in these years? This is something that can be very hard to decide in a free society. Anything taught can't sway personal beliefs. The Scopes Monkey Trial in the mid 20th century decided that we would stop teaching the creation story in public schools. Students would instead be taught the evolution theory based on Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection and the common ancestor. In a time when most people were very Christian, this was a huge controversy. Now it is seen by many as logical. The changing times made this seem like the more ethical choice; to rely more on science than religion. Where is the line drawn that determines the ethics of general education? This is not a solid line, but instead a changing blur that will always change with the changing times. Political correctness has pushed altered this line in recent years. Is it ethical for a teacher to talk about hot button issues such as abortion? I think censorship in the classroom is only handicapping the minds of students. This is why college is such an important prospect to me; the opportunity to hear opinions expressed freely.



College professors have a huge amount of freedom compared to secondary teachers. They are not guiding the minds of children, but instead the minds of legal adults. This raises the bar for what can be taught. Although colleges have a curriculum for a class that must be followed, they have more leeway for a discussion to go in a sticky area so to speak. At this point you are choosing what you learn because you are paying for the class instead of fulfilling a requirement. does this fact change the ethics behind what a professor chooses to teach and what a college board approves? I think it makes an immense difference. If you dislike the topic of study in a class you don't have to take it. The fact that college is a time to go deeper into study of a field that you are passionate about makes it more reasonable that what you are learning may push buttons of some people and go beyond the ethical line.

After your formal education, learning can go beyond this because there are no ethical lines unless you set them yourself. This is why life after schooling may be where knowledge really begins. (532)