Integrity And Civility In Schools

Society today has portrayed integrity and civility in many shapes and forms, and these forms range from government officials to food producers. Yes government officials, food producers and everything in between should display these acts of integrity and civility, but they all share one common source: school. School should show students how to gain good morals using integrity and civility but they are currently not holding students accountable as they have in the past.

School staff interacts with students 6-7 hours a day, 5 days a week, and are set not just as staff but as examples and as role models. The majority of the school staff agree that these traits should be shown in school for students to be able to not just pick up on good manners, but to learn good morals. In the article A Challenge for Social Studies Educators: Increasing Civility in Schools and Society by Modeling Civic Virtues it is mentioned how students react to past and current social events and states, “Civility is not simply good manners; it is a moral virtue rooted in the notion that all people are created equally and deserve respect. Thus, incivility is not compatible with the principles of American democracy. This article will examine why civility is critical to public discourse and offer suggestions for teaching and modeling civility in social studies classes”(Moore, p. 2). Civility should be shown not just taught in order for students to learn from them. I have been in classes where teachers have a discussion with their students about who looks better, or who has the better judgement instead of them setting examples for their students. They have taken up class time by messing around or by simply not talking a lot during the class period. If these teachers started acting more mature and started showing better morals in class then their students will also pick up on those good morals.

School is used to help obtain certain job position in life, so isn’t school a place where integrity and civility should be shown by school staff? When I was a little girl running around my elementary school, we would be taught good from bad. We were taught basic good morals. Now I pass by an elementary school and I see children pushing each other or showing a big amount of disrespect to their teachers.I see most of this in highschool as well. Schools should start to teach integrity and civility in all grades in order for students to already have these good morals by the time they’re in their adolescent years. The text, Teachers as Role Models states, “When public schools were established in the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries, one of their stated missions was to teach moral virtues. Teachers back then were expected to be morally upright individuals who display good character. They were expected to teach and discipline their students to be respectful of authority and responsible in completing their lessons”(Lumpkin, par. 2). Schools were established to not just teach what kids learn today, but to also teach mannerism and integrity and civility. Shouldn't We keep teaching this as well as other lectures? This would improve kids attitude towards school in a tremendous way. By showing integrity and civility would it not change a young mind to believe that they can have what they desire if they work hard rather than giving up once things turn tough?

A few of these steps have already started taking place in other schools. Teachers have started implementing the good morals of civility and integrity in their classrooms which has had a positive effect on their students by far. The text Teaching the Social Curriculum: School Discipline as Instruction has said, “One effort to increase the implementation of effective instructional methods of school discipline and the promising results from the 1st year of implementation are described”(Skiba and Peterson, par. 1). It has been proven that these morals actually work on students and actually help the students all due to the teacher and other school staff setting examples. Since the school staff started embedding these morals throughout school, the students then picked up on the morals and it all had a positive outcome within a year. Overall integrity and civility is a must in today's society. This isn’t just for luxury, it isn’t just to make our society look better, it is to improve it and to make the future generations better. I could talk for days on many instances where integrity and civility have lacked, and especially in the school environment. It is best to introduce these good morals in school for students bto use once they are introduced into the real world, and not just for them to tell right or wrong, but because they should be introduced to integrity and civility for they are the future of society and our country.