• sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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    8 days ago

    kids developing a moral compass

    Yeah, not happening. I’ve really tried, and the most effective thing is providing external consequences for undesirable behavior, as in loss of privileges. I was a pretty chill kid, and I can’t say I had a properly working “moral compass” until my mid-20s, if that. I didn’t bully anyone, but I was secretly happy when bad things happened to people I didn’t like.

    So yeah, stick with the first two, you’ll probably have more success than trying to instill morality into kids who are still harboring resentment at not getting to pick the first slice of pizza last week.

    • kwomp2@sh.itjust.works
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      8 days ago

      Yes, happening. Empathy and morals (which are party sort of systemized empathy) do develop. Needs time and good relationship circumstances though. I’m in outdoor pedagogy and I’m pretty sure kids make a lot of progress with some help here and there.

      School as both the no 1 pedagogical field and an institution of selection and disciplination (hello competition, hello human market) isn’t a great place to progress in that.

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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        8 days ago

        Needs time and good relationship circumstances though

        Yup, and time is the issue here. My kids are way better than their peers IMO, and my kids’ teachers have said as much (not sure if they’re just buttering me up though). But they’re still amoral little jerks a lot of the time. They’ll get there eventually, but my point is to not rely on that and instead mitigate the worst of it while their moral compass is getting calibrated.

        • kwomp2@sh.itjust.works
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          8 days ago

          That sounds good and healthy to me. It’s definetly part of any pedagocial role to mitigate the worst. I mean I strongly advocate for hope in the good in kids and teach/allow them to make this world a better place than we managed to so far, responsibility and all kinds of compasses. But surely they are idiots and need to rely on us mitigating that!