Secular education didn't mean that the moral instruction was abandoned. In fact the opposite was the case. As citizens of the new nation, parents were responsible for socialising their children into the moral code of Judeo-Christian civilisation. Teachers, acting in loco parentis, took on this responsibility at school.
Moral instruction was taught both directly and using stories from that ancient heritage. Good manners, respect for older people, decent conduct, and self-responsibility were expected from a young age.
What was called 'the Nelson System' was an attempt to balance the tension between those who wanted instruction into religious beliefs and those who wanted secular schools which taught the general moral code. The constant need for balance between conflicting interests is, today as in the 19th century, democracy's creative tension being practised in real life.
Moral instruction was taught both directly and using stories from that ancient heritage. Good manners, respect for older people, decent conduct, and self-responsibility were expected from a young age.
What was called 'the Nelson System' was an attempt to balance the tension between those who wanted instruction into religious beliefs and those who wanted secular schools which taught the general moral code. The constant need for balance between conflicting interests is, today as in the 19th century, democracy's creative tension being practised in real life.
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Professor Elizabeth Rata is a sociologist of education in the School of Critical Studies, Faculty of Education and Social Work at the University of Auckland where she is Director of the Knowledge in Education Research Unit (KERU).
5 comments:
There is clear evidence in more recent times of parents dropping the ball of guiding / teaching their children self-resposibility!! Leaving schools to grapple with the fall out!!
>"Good manners, respect for older people, decent conduct, and self-responsibility were expected from a young age."
Sounds more like a rationale for moral education within a Confucian framework!
We find the same themes arising in moral and ethical precepts across religious backdrops. That is because a society can only function smoothly when there are rules about such things as intergenerational relations in place.
Anarchic communities in the early days of civilisation went to the wall. A recurring theme when you look at robust ancient civilisations is that they all had strong civil and moral codes that were enforced.
An interesting essay topic was presented as part of a university course I attended:
" Schools are the legatees of neglected parental obligations."
This applies to so many functions that parents
seem to have abandoned. It is almost impossible for your children not to be influenced by your own religious attitudes. The Education Act was very wise to deliberately refrain from making public education anything other than secular.
While Elizabeth's analysis of NZ Education , rightly values the structural necessity of a secular knowledge rich curriculum to build a democracy ( as we used to have in NZ), her framework suffers from a significant geographical and cultural blind spot . By filtering early NZ history primarily through an upper N.Island lens , she misses the vital energy that actually made universal literacy functional on the ground : the Scottish Presbyterian educational ethic.
It is not just historical theory, it is a lived family lineage through my mother Doris Ferry QSM., who weathered appalling persecution from the Education Department, during the reading wars of late last century and taught 1500 reading failing students with classic Scottish universal literacy.
To Doris , reading was a democratic right and a moral obligation. She succeeded with every single child regardless of background or reading handicap , deserved the rigorous empirical tools to master knowledge..
Rata's focuses on the legislative aspect of the 1877 act . Laws are meaningless without the cultural ingredients to enforce them. The story of NZ education is incomplete without the fierce egalitarian work ethic of educators like Doris Ferry, who proved that true universalism is achieved not just by passing acts but by ensuring -with unyielding rigour - that every child can read. Gaynor .
Don, while I don't overlook parental responsibility, . to place all the blame for academic failure on the parents is exactly what Progressive Educatiom wishes everyone to do. By doing that it need never have examination of its own completely iniquitous methods, lack of rigour and discipline.
I suggest you listen to Katherine Burbalsinghe an Oxford graduate and principal of a very high performing low decile school, that trashes the educational theory into which you were being indoctrnated..
It was , unfortunately , sociological overreach into NZ education in the 1960s , that transferred failure of the school onto parents .Very convenient if you are dedicated to pushing progressive ideology into schools. Gaynor
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